HIKD'S   KYK  YIICW  OF   GROUNDS   AND  liUILDP 


•OI.UMTUAN  EXPOSITION',  C'HICAr.O,  1892-93. 


"  My  Country, Tis  of  Thee  1 

OR, 

THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA; 

PAST,  PRESENT  ANB  FUTURK, 


A  PHILOSOPHIC  VIEW  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  AND  OF  OUR  PRESENT 
STATUS,  TO  BE  SEEN  IN 

THE  COLUMBIAN  EXHIBITION. 


WILLIS  FLETCHER  JOHNSON,  A.  M., 

AUTHOR  OF  "  STANLEY'S  ADVENTURES  IN  AFRICA,"  "  HISTORY  OF  THE  JOHNSTOWN 
FLOOD,"  "A  LIFE  OP  GENERAL  SHERMAN,"  ETC. 


GREAT  ISSUES  OF  THE  FUTURE, 

AS  VIEWED   BY 

OUR  MOST  PROMINENT  EDITORS  AND  EMINENT  MEN  OF 
OUR  COUNTRY, 

INCLUDING 

PRESIDENT  HARRISON,  EX-PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND,  SENATOR  SHERMAN, 

JUDGE  THURMAN,  CARDINAL  GIBBONS,  BISHOP  Foss,  BISHOP 

POTTER,  T.  V.  POWDERLY,  GENERAL  SCHOFIELD, 

ADMIRAL  PORTER,  AND  MANY  OTHERS. 


JOHN  HABBERTON, 

AUTHOR  OK  "A  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON,"  ETC.,  AND  EDITOR  OP 
"THE  SELECT  BRITISH  ESSAYISTS." 


ILLUSTRATED. 


INTERNATIONAL  PUBLISHING  CO., 

44  N.  4th  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa.         134  E.  Van  Buren  St.,  Chicago,  III 

1892. 


Copyright,  1892,  by  B.  W.  URIAH. 


Or f ice  or  THE 

BOARD  OF  LADY   MANAGERS. 
WORLD'S  COLUMBIAN   EXPOSITION. 


GENTLEMEN  : 

With  reference  to  your  request  for  an  intro- 
ductory note,  allow  me  to  assure  you  that  it 
affords  me  great  pleasure  to  speak  to  the  masses 
through  the  medium  of  your  excellent  book. 

Thanking  you  for  the  courtesy,  I  am, 

Yours  most  truly, 


THE  PURPOSES 

OF  THE 

BOARD  OF  LADY  MANAGERS 

OF  THE 

WORLD'S  COLUMBIAN  COMMISSION. 


The  Board  of  L,ady  Managers  of  the  World's  Colum- 
bian Commission,  having  been  created  and  authorized  by 
the  concurrent  action  of  Congress  and  the  Columbian  Com- 
mission, to  take  entire  charge  of  the  interests  of  women  at 
the  coming  Exposition,  desires  to  develop  to  the  fullest  ex- 
tent the  grand  possibilities  which  have  been  placed  within 
its  reach. 

The  Board  wishes  to  mark  the  first  participation  of 
women  in  an  important  national  enterprise,  by  preparing 
an  object  lesson  to  show  the  progress  made  by  women  in 
every  country  of  the  world,  during  the  century  in  which 
educational  and  other  privileges  have  been  granted  her, 
and  to  show  the  increased  usefulness  that  has  resulted  from 
the  enlargement  of  her  opportunities. 

The  Board  of  Lady  Managers  invites  the  women  of 
all  countries  to  participate  in  this  great  exhibit  of  woman's 
work,  to  the  end  that  it  may  be  made  not  only  national, 
but  universal,  and  that  all  may  profit  by  a  free  comparison 
of  methods,  agencies,  and  results. 

It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  such  a  representative 
collection  be  secured  from  every  country  as  will  give  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  extent  and  value  of  what  is  being  done 
bjr  women  in  the  arts,  sciences,  and  industries. 


We  will  aim  to  show  to  the  breadwinners,  who  are 
fighting  unaided  the  battle  of  life,  the  new  avenues  of  em- 
ployment that  are  constantly  being  opened  to  women,  and 
in  which  of  these  their  work  will  be  of  the  most  distinct 
value  by  reason  of  their  natural  adaptability,  sensitive 
and  artistic  temperaments,  and  individual  tastes  ;  what 
education  will  best  enable  them  to  enjoy  the  wider  oppor- 
tunities awaiting  them  and  make  their  work  of  the  greatest 
worth,  not  only  to  themselves  but  to  the  world. 

The  Board  has  decided  that  at  the  coming  Exposition 
it  will  not  attempt  to  separate  the  exhibit  of  woman's 
work  from  that  of  men,  for  the  reason  that  as  women  are 
working  side  by  side  with  men  in  all  the  factories  of  the 
world,  it  would  be  practically  impossible,  in  most  cases,  to 
divide  the  finished  result  of  their  combined  work  ;  nor 
would  women  be  satisfied  with  prizes  unless  they  were 
awarded  without  distinction  as  to  sex,  and  as  the  result  of 
fair  competition  with  the  best  work  shown.  They  are 
striving  for  excellence,  and  desire  recognition  only  for  de- 
monstrated merit.  In  order,  however,  that  the  enormous 
amount  of  work  being  done  by  women  may  be  appreciated 
a  tabulated  statement  will  be  procured  and  shown  with 
every  exhibit,  stating  the  proportion  of  woman's  work 
that  enters  into  it.  The  application  blanks  now  being  sent 
out  to  manufacturers  contain  this  inquiry. 

The  Board  of  I^ady  Managers  has  been  granted  by 
Act  of  Congress  the  great  and  unusual  privilege  of  ap- 
pointing members  of  each  jury  to  award  prizes  for  articles 
into  which  woman's  work  enters.  The  number  of  women 
on  each  jury  will  be  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  work 
done  by  women  in  the  corresponding  department  of  clas- 
sification. The  statement  as  to  the  amount  of  their 
work  will  therefore  be  of  double  significance,  for  in  ad- 
dition to  the  impressive  showing  of  how  large  a  pro- 
portion of  the  heavy  labor  of  the  world  is  being  per- 
formed by  the  weaker  sex,  it  will  also  determine  the 
amount  of  jury  representation  to  which  the  Board  is  entitled, 


Beside  the  extensive  exhibit  iia  the  general  Exposition 
buildings,  women  will  have  another  opportunity  of  dis- 
playing work  of  superior  excellence  in  a  very  advantageous 
way  in  the  Woman's  Building,  over  which  the  Board  of 
L,ady  Managers  will  exercise  complete  control.  In  its 
central  gallery  it  is  intended  to  have  grouped  the  most 
brilliant  achievements  of  women  from  every  country  and 
in  every  line  of  work.  Exhibits  will  be  admitted  only  by 
invitation,  which  will  be  considered  the  equivalent  of  a 
prize.  No  sentimental  sympathy  for  women  will  cause 
the  admission  of  second-rate  objects,  for  the  highest 
standard  of  excellence  is  to  be  there  strictly  maintained. 
Commissions  of  women  organized  in  all  countries,  as 
auxiliaries  to  the  Board  of  Lady  Managers,  will  be  asked 
to  recommend  objects  of  supreme  excellence  produced  by 
women,  and  producers  of  such  successful  work  will  be 
invited  to  place  specimens  in  the  gallery  of  the  Woman's 
Building. 

Not  only  has  woman  become  an  immense,  although 
generally  unrecognized  factor  in  the  industrial  world,  but 
hers  being  essentially  the  arts  of  peace  and  progress,  her 
best  work  is  shown  in  the  numberless  charitable,  reform- 
atory, educational,  and  other  beneficent  institutions 
which  she  has  had  the  courage  and  the  ideality,  to  estab- 
lish for  the  alleviation  of  suffering,  for  the  correction  of 
many  forms  of  social  injustice  and  neglect,  and  for  the 
reformation  of  long-established  wrongs.  These  institu- 
tions exert  a  strong  and  steady  influence  for  good,  an 
influence  which  tends  to  decrease  vice,  to  make  useful 
citizens  of  the  helpless  or  depraved,  to  elevate  the  standard 
of  morality,  and  to  increase  the  sum  of  human  happiness  ; 
thus  most  effectively  supplementing  the  best  efforts  and 
furthering  the  highest  aims  of  all  government. 

All  organizations  of  women  must  be  impressed  with 
the  necessity  of  making  an  effective  showing  of  the  noble 
work  which  each  is  carrying  on.  We  especially  desire  to 
have  represented,  in  the  rooms  reserved  for  that  purpose, 


the  educational  work  originated  or  carried  on  by  women, 
from  the  Kindergarten  organizations  up  to  the  highest 
branches  of  education,  including  all  schools  of  applied 
science  and  art,  such  as  training-schools  for  nurses,  manual 
training,  industrial  art  and  cooking  schools,  domestic 
economy,  sanitation,  etc.  When  not  practically  exhibited, 
the  work  of  all  such  organizations  should  be  shown  by 
maps,  charts,  photographs,  relief  models,  etc.;  but  it  is 
earnestly  hoped  that  one,  at  least,  the  most  representative 
institution  in  each  of  these  branches,  will  be  shown  from 
every  country,  in  order  that  a  comparison  may  be  made 
of  methods  and  results. 

BERTHA  M.  H.  PALMER. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  AGE  OF  DISCOVERY. 

Classic  legends  of  Atlantis — Chinese  and  Japanese  accounts  of  early 
voyages  to  America — Prince  Madoc  and  the  Welsh  legends — The 
Toyages  of  the  Vikings — Eric  and  Leif  and  their  adventures — Col- 
umbus and  his  schemes — The  most  memorable  voyage  in  history — 
Post-Columbian  voyagers  and  explorers — Many  men  from  many 
lands  flocking  to  the  newly-discovered  continent — A  new  world 
opened  to  the  civilization  and  to  the  greed  of  Europe 17 

CHAPTER  II. 

"  IN  THE  GOOD  OLD  COLONY  TIMES." 

Parcelling  out  the  country — Foundation  of  the  earliest  colonies — 
Jamestown  and  its  settlers — Strange  improvidence  of  the  colonists 
— Troubles  with  the  Indians — John  Smith  and  Pocahontas — The 
Pilgrims  and  Puritans — Substantial  growth  of  the  New  England 
Colonies — New  York — Troubles  with  the  Mother  Country — Growth 
of  the  spirit  of  independence — The  War  of  the  Revolution  and  its 
results 60 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION. 

Establishing  a  constitutional  government — Disputes  with  other  powers 
— A  second  war  with  England — Territorial  acquisitions — Settlement 
and  admission  of  new  States — The  slavery  question — War  with 
Mexico — The  rush  for  gold  in  California — The  Kansas  troubles — • 
How  the  great  war  was  precipitated — The  campaigns  from  Bull 
Run  to  Apporaattox — Political  results  of  the  war — Rapid  growth  of 
the  country  etncc— - The  present;  state  of  the  nation  ,,,,,,,  105 

6 


CONTENTS.  7 

CHAPTER  IV. 
WORLD'S  FAIRS. 

The  origin  UIK}  object  of  universal  exhibitions — New  York's  Crystal 
Palace — Spirit  and  hopes  of  its  projectors — Its  display  of  the  na- 
tion's greatness — The  Centennial  Exposition  of  1876 — Magnitude 
of  the  enterprise — Description  of  its  hundred  buildings — Calendar 
of  events — An  impressive  exposition  of  national  development  .  .  146 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  COLUMBIAN  EXPOSITION. 

Preparations  for  a  celebration  of  the  quartercentenary  of  Columbus — 
Chkago  fhosen  as  the  site — Marvelous  history  of  the  Western  Me- 
tropolis— How  the  Columbian  Exhibition  was  organized — Sketches 
of  its  promoters — The  principal  buildings  and  grounds — Financial 
arrangements — An  exhibition  surpassing  all  its  predecessors  and  fit- 
tingly commemorating  the  birth  of  a  new  world 204 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE. 

Marriage  Customs  in  the  United  States — Shiploads  of  women  dis- 
posed of  as  wives  to  the  earlier  Virginia  Planters — The  Marriage 
Relation  should  be  closely  guarded — Divorced  people,  have  they 
moral  right  to  remarry  ? — A  rich  man  and  a  stupid  wife — Drift- 
ing apart — Duty  of  the  Church — Views  of  a  happy  wife — Novels, 
love  and  marriage — "  Beauty  and  the  Beast " — An  insulting  im- 
putation— Is  it  the  "  best  match  ?  " — Marriage  blunders  .  .  247 

CHAPTER   VII. 

THE   DEMON   OF  DIVORCE. 

Marriage  not  a  failure — Rev.  David  Swing's  caustic  comment — Views 
of  Rabbi  Silverman — Heartlessness  of  Divorce  Court  proceedings 
-Divorced  persons  debarred  by  the  Queen  of  England — Suffer- 
ings of  the  children — "  Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  hideous  mien  " 
— Shall  we  have  a  Constitutional  Amendment  restricting  divorce  ? 
— Views  of  Bishop  Foss  and  Bishop  Whittaker — Position  of  the 
Catholic  Church  and  of  the  Hebrews — "  Church  union  cannot  be 
combated  "•—"  Burn  the  bridges "  ,»',««  3&> 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES. 

Encumbered  with  mortgage — Energy  of  the  farmer — Lack  of  capital 
— Labor — The  farmer's  children  and  city  life — "  The  borrower  is 
servant  to  the  lender" — The  census  valuation  of  farm  lands — 
Hiram  Sibley,  the  millionaire  farmer — Twelve  Vermont  farms — 
The  Western  farmer  and  the  railroads — Co-operative  stores — 
"  Land-poor  " — Government  aid  for  the  farmers  ....  272 

CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  RUM    POWER. 

Harm  done  by  the  liquor  traffic — Views  of  Bishop  Warren,  of  the 
Methodist  Church — Miss  Frances  Willard's  views — "  Petroleum" 
Nasby — Rum  in  politics — Channing's  aphorism — Rev.  Theodore 
Cuyler's  summary  of  statistics — Causes  of  drunkenness — Ways  to 
reclaim  the  unfortunates — Control  the  demon  by  law — Public 
opinion — Bishop  Foss'  reply — Restrictive  measures  .  .  .  288 

CHAPTER   X. 

NATIONAL  DEFENCE. 

Our  harbors  useless — Caught  napping  by  England — Troops  and  the 
Indians — General  Sheridan's  last  report — General  Sherman's  pro- 
tests— Congressional  inactivity — Admiral  Porter  hammering  at 
Congress — A  blast  from  the  late  Samuel  J.  Tilden — Desertions 
from  the  army — Statistics  from  General  Schofield's  report — Fron- 
tier life  for  the  spldier — Major  Sumner's  plan  ....  303 

CHAPTER  XI. 

LABOR. 

Laboring  men — Their  mistakes  and  their  grievances — Labor  sure  to 
be  imposed  upon — Driving  a  sharp  bargain — Low  wages  resulting 
from  competition — A  laborer  in  chains  recently  brought  for  sale 
into  the  market-place  of  a  New  England  town — But  the  people 
rise  in  their  wrath — Does  practical  slavery  exist  in  the  United 
States  ? — Coal  miners  and  factory  hands  compared  with  the  tonsis- 
tados  of  South  America — The  store  system  of  credits — Resulting 
evils  to  the  laborers 318 

CHAPTER  XII. 

SELF-HELP    FOR    LABOR. 

The  importance  of  being  a  "full-handed  workman  "—Successful 


T.ONTENTS.  9 

mech.i'iics  know  more  than  one  branch  of  business — This  quality 
developed  in  new  countries — Votes  of  laborers  controlled  by  cor- 
porations— A  curious  experience  in  the  West  ....  336 

CHAPTER  XIH. 

IMMIGRATION. 

America  is  a  home — Not  an  asylum — Liberty  is  not  license — No 
paupers  need  apply — Nor  any  contract  laborers — Skilled  labor 
welcome,  if  it  comes  to  stay — Immigrant  farmers  will  do  us  good 
— Too  much  hurry  in  granting  citizenship — Foreign  faction  fights 
must  not  be  kept  up  here — Transplanted  stock  improves  rapidly  .  351 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

ANNEXATION. 

We  don't  want  the  earth — We  need  more  neighbors — Not  more  chil- 
dren— Non-assimilative  races  would  weaken  us — The  Old  World's 
experience  at  land-grabbing — Let  Canada  alone  till  she  wants  us 
— Likewise  Mexico — We  have  enough  discordant  interests  now — 
We  don't  want  to  pay  other  nations'  debts  .....  368 

CHAPTER   XV. 

THE   INDIAN. 

He  has  stopped  fighting — Let  us  stop  robbing  him — The  Indian  will 
work — He  has  plenty  of  brains — Capacity  for  education  abun- 
dantly proved — Records  of  the  experiment  at  Hampton — He 
knows  a  good  thing  when  he  sees  it — The  beneficent  effects  of  the 
Dawes  bill — Even  the  Apaches  have  worked  as  good  as  white 

men 385 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  PRESS. 

The  editor  is  the  nation's  schoolmaster — Also  the  most  trusty  advo- 
cate of  the  people's  rights — He  brings  the  people  together  in 
spirit  and  purpose — Always  ahead  of  Congress  and  the  govern- 
ment— Rapid  improvement  of  the  newspaper — Independence  in 
journalism — Trial  by  newspaper 399 

CHAPTER  XVIL 

THE  SCHOOL-ROOM. 

Boy§  and  girls  who  are  to  be  men  and  women — The  schools  are  be- 
hind the  times — Too  much  fuss  and  too  little  gain— Discipline 
which  costs  too  much — Heads  stuffed,  but  hands  and  hearts 
neglected — Faults  of  teaching — About  faculties  benumbed  by  rou- 


10  CONTENTS. 

tine  work — What  has  been  done  can  be  done — The  country  boy 
ahead 410 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

RAILROADS. 

Rights  and  wrongs  of  the  great  transportation  corporations — What 
they  have  done  for  the  country  and  what  the  country  has  done  for 
them — Era  of  construction  closed  and  an  era  of  restriction  and 
regulation  begun — Why  railroad  officials  become  millionaires — 
Watering  stock — A  curious  question  which  will  be  raised  one  of 
these  days 431 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

BANKS  AND  BANKING. 

New  York  no  longer  the  sole  dictator  in  the  money  market — Why 
Western  business  men  are  now  independent  of  metropolitan 
money-lenders  —  The  increase  of  "reserve  cities" — Banking 
methods  to  dodge  the  laws — How  unscrupulous  bank  directors 
get  rich — Why  so  many  cashiers  go  to  Canada  and  how  to  stop 
them — Noted  living  bankers 455 

CHAPTER   XX. 
OUR  CITIES. 

Cities  are  necessary  evils — But  greatly  to  be  avoided — City  life  is 
dangerous  to  most  persons — Unnatural  influences  are  inevitable — 
Hard  on  the  purse  and  hard  on  the  heart — Poverty's  last  refuge — 
The  home  of  the  thief — The  touch  of  nature  lost — Temptations 
innumerable — Restraints  few — No  place  for  country  boys  and  girls 
— City  forms  of  government  must  change — THE  DARKER  SIDE — 
The  sorrows  of  the  city  poor — Friendless  and  alone — Miserable 
homes — Health  and  morals  menaced — All  depends  on  one  life — 
Chances  and  misfortunes — Sickness  and  death — The  story  of  the 
Ganges  paralleled — The  majority  are  industrious — An  army  of 
heroes — Religion  and  rum  their  only  comforts — Child  work  and 
child  ruin — Benevelence  wearied  and  despairing  ....  481 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

RELIGION. 

Religion  is  in  no  danger — The  letter  suffers  but  the  spirit  grows — 
Essentials  were  never  more  prominent — The  tree  is  judged  by  its 
fruit — Proselyting  has  gone  out  of  date — Denominations  have 
ceased  to  fight— A  life  as  well  as  a  faith  .  .  .  ,  .  509 


CONTENTS.  11 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

WOMAN  AND    HER   WORK.  • 

One  "  woman's  right "  secured — She  has  a  chance  almost  everywhere 
— The  liberation  of  man — Woman's  wits  sharpen  quickly — Advan- 
tages over  male  workers — Woman  need  not  marry  for  a  homa — 
The  tables  turned — Some  effects  upon  society — Never  enslaved 
unless  stupid— The  "  Song  of  the  Shirt  "—The  coming  generation  517 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

OUR   LITERATURE. 

A  nation  of  readers — Books  to  be  found  everywhere — The  Sunday- 
School  library — Chautauqua's  great  work — The  American  author 
is  a  busy  man — Good  books  make  their  way,  sooner  or  later — 
Abler  men  should  go  into  authorship — Our  literature  making  its 
way  abroad — American  writers'  characteristics — Our  literature  is 
clean,  earnest  and  hopeful 531 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

AMERICAN   HUMOR. 

The  salt  that  will  save  us — A  nation  of  jokers — Our  Puritan  and 
cavalier  ancestors  were  fond  of  fun — President  Lincoln's  jokes — 
Humor  in  the  pulpit — Fun  in  the  newspapers — Prentice — Mark 
Twain  —  Nasby  —  Nye  and  Riley  —  Miles  O'  Reilley  —  "  Uncle 
Remus" — John  Hay — "Bob"  Burdette — All  healthy  fun — No 
malignity  in  our  jokes — The  best-natured  people  alive  .  .  .  547 

CHAPTER      XXV. 

THE   HIGHER   EDUCATION. 

A  land  full  of  colleges — How  these  institutions  began  to  exisU  > 
Tributes  to  American  regard  for  intelligence  and  education — 
Something  better  needed — No  lack  of  money — Views  of  Presidents 
Dwight  of  Yale,  Eliot  of  Harvard,  McCosh  of  Princeton,  White 
of  Cornell,  Bartlett  of  Dartmouth,  and  Oilman  of  Johns  Hopkins — 
Bishop  Potter  on  the  place  of  the  scholar  in  America  .  .  .  566 

CHAPTER     XXVI. 

OUR  GREAT  CONCERN. 

Our  country  first  and  foremost — No  sectional  differences — No  foreign 
interests  or  entanglements — The  people  first,  the  party  afterward — 
Loyalty  to  party  means  disloyalty  to  the  republic — Meddlers  must 
be  suppressed — All  in  the  family — One  for  all  and  all  for  one — 
E  Pluribus  Unum 597 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FACING 
PAGE 


Bird's-eye  View  of  Grounds  and  Buildings,  Colum- 
bian Exposition,  Chicago,  1892-93,  .   .     Frontispiece 

Christopher  Columbus, 17 

Landing  of  Columbus, 32 

Washington, 49 

Residence    of  the    President  of  the    United    States, 

1798,  64 

Abraham  Lincoln, 81 

World's  Fair,  New  York,  1853, 96 

Main  Building,  International  Centennial  Exhibition, 

1876, 113 

Libby  Prison,  128 

Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia, 145 

Chicago  in  1856, 160 

Chicago  Street  Life— Washington  Street  and  Wabash 

Avenue, 177 

U.  S.  Grant, 192 

The  Capitol, 209 

Bear  Pit  (Lincoln  Park) 224 

The  Auditorium  Hotel,  . 241 

Bird's-eye  View  of  the  Proposed  Buildings  of  the 

University  of  Chicago, 256 


14  UST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FACING 
PACK 

Tacoma  Building, 273 

Residence  of  Hon.  Potter  Palmer, 288 

Mines  Building,      305 

U.  S.  Man-of-War, 320 

Agricultural  Building, *  .    .    .    .  337 

Perspective  View  Looking  South,  Showing  End  of 

World's  Columbian  Exposition, 352 

Administration  Building, 369 

Electrical  Building, 384 

Gallery  of  Fine  Arts, 401 

Transportation   Building, 416 

Horticultural  Hall, 433 

Fisheries  and  Agricultural 448 

Manufactures  and  Liberal  Arts  Building, 465 

Machinery  Hall, 480 

Woman's  Building, 497 


CHRISTOPHER   COLUMBUS. 


"MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 


B 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   AGE  OF  DISCOVERY. 

EGINNING  with  the  year  1492,  the  date  of 
the  first  voyage  of  Columbus,  necessarily 
leaves  a  great  part  of  American  history  untold. 
Every  nation's  story  begins  in  the  middle  ;  back 
of  L,eonidas  are  the  Homeric  heroes  ;  Romulus 
and  Remus  antedate  the  Tarquins.  So,  cen- 
turies before  the  clear  glory  of  Columbus,  we 
have  tradition  of  various  shadowy  explorers 
whose  strange  barques  visited  our  shores.  Un- 
less we  grant  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  America 
an  autochthonic  origin,  it  seems  most  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  they  came  from  Asia.  Such  au- 
thorities as  Humboldt,  Bancroft,  and  Prescott 
declare  it  their  opinion  that  the  monuments,  the 
systems  of  cosmogony,  the  methods  of  comput- 
ing time,  etc.,  all  point  to  an  ancient  communi- 
cation with  eastern  Asia.  It  is  certain  that  from 
time  immemorial  constant  intercourse  has  been 
kept  up  between  the  natives  of  either  side  of 
Bering's  Strait,  and  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
original  immigrants  came  that  way.  There  are 

other  possible  routes — the  Aleutian  Islands  and 
•2,  17 


18  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

Polynesia  are  the  two  next  favored  by  the 
authorities. 

There  is  a  distinct  trace  of  Japanese  blood  in 
many  of  the  native  tribes  of  the  northwest  coast, 
and  we  have  too  many  modern  instances  of  Japa- 
nese junks  drifting  upon  the  American  coast, 
after  floating  for  months  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Pacific  currents,  to  doubt  the  possibility  of  pre- 
historic visits  of  these  people.  What  is  known 
as  the  "  black  stream,"  or  Japan  current,  runs 
northward  past  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Japanese 
Islands,  then  curves  to  the  east  and  south,  pass- 
ing the  west  coast  of  America  and  moving  toward 
the  Sandwich  Islands.  This  current,  it  is  said, 
would  carry  a  drifting  vessel  toward  the  Ameri- 
can coast  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  a  day. 

The  theory  which  supposes  the  people,  or  at 
least  the  civilization,  of  America  to  be  of  Hgyp- 
tian  origin  is  based  upon  analogies  existing  be- 
tween the  architecture,  hieroglyphics,  and  various 
customs  of  the  two  countries.  But  even  where 
these  analogies  bear  the  test  of  close  examina- 
tion, they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  prove  anything. 
In  western  Asia  the  Phoenicians — those  bold 
voyagers — and  their  children,  the  Carthagenians, 
are  given  the  honor  of  settling  America.  The 
records  of  their  travels  show  that  they  knew  of 
a  country  lying  far  to  the  west.  In  the  writings 
of  Diodorus  Siculus  is  an  elaborate  account  of  a 
wonderful  island  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  far  be- 


THE  AGE   OF   DISCOVERY.  19 

yond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  many  days' 
journey  from  the  coast  of  Africa.  This  happy 
land,  fertile  of  soil,  beautiful  of  scenery,  and  per- 
fect of  climate,  was  accidentally  discovered  by 
Phoenician  sailors,  whose  barque  was  driven 
thither  by  contrary  winds.  On  their  return 
they  gave  such  glowing  accounts  of  the  new 
country  that  large  colonies  of  Tyrians  left  their 
native  land  to  settle  there.  This  may  have  been 
America,  but  is  more  likely  to  have  been  the 
Canary  Islands. 

Volumes  have  been  written  to  prove  that 
America  was  settled  by  the  Ten  Lost  Tribes  of 
Israel. 

In  old  Welsh  annals  there  is  an  account  of  a 
colony  established  in  the  twelfth  century  by 
Madoc,  one  of  the  sons  of  Owen  Gwynedd,  prince 
of  North  Wales.  After  the  death  of  this  monarch, 
his  sons  waged  war  against  each  other  for  the 
sovereignty.  Madoc  became  disgusted  with  con- 
tention, and  determined  to  leave  his  native 
country  and  establish  a  kingdom  of  his  own,  as 
far  away  as  possible  from  the  quarreling  of  his 
brothers.  He  set  sail,  with  what  followers 
he  could  muster,  and  for  many  months  bore  west- 
ward. At  length  they  came  to  a  large  and  favor- 
able country,  and,  having  sailed  for  some  distance 
along  the  coast,  they  found  a  landing-place  to 
their  liking  and  disembarked.  Some  years  later, 
Madoc  returned  to  Wales  and  persuaded  a  large 


20  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

number  of  his  country  men  to  join  the  colony. 
Ten  ships  were  fitted  out  with  all  manner  of 
supplies,  and  many  families  set  sail  for  the  new 
land.  Of  their  further  adventures  the  records 
are  silent. 

An  Irish  discovery  of  America  is  also  claimed. 
St.  Patrick  is  said  to  have  sent  missionaries 
thither.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
Irish  sailors  could  have  reached,  by  accident  or 
otherwise,  the  shores  of  our  continent,  but  there 
is  no  reason  at  all  to  believe  that  they  did. 

But  these  are  all  speculations,  fairy  stories, 
myths.  Coming  down  to  sober  facts,  there  are 
but  two  historical  documents  of  real  value  bear- 
ing upon  the  discovery  of  America  before 
Columbus.  One  of  these  documents  is  Chinese, 
the  other  Scandinavian. 

The  Chinese  document  is  an  extract  from  the 
official  records,  and  sets  forth  the  adventures  of 
a  Buddhist  priest  named  Hwui  Shin,  the  same 
being  related  by  him  after  his  return  from  a 
country  lying  very  far  to  the  eastward.  This 
country  is  claimed  by  some  to  have  been  Japan, 
but  others  claim  that  it  was  America.  The 
weight  of  evidence  certainly  inclines  toward  the 
latter  theory.  The  historian  begins  his  account 
with  the  statement  that,  in  order  to  reach  the 
new  continent,  it  is  necessary  to  set  out  from  the 
coast  of  the  province  Leao-tong,  to  the  north  of 
Peking,  reaching  Japan  after  a  journey  of  twelve 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  21 

thousand  It — that  is,  about  four  thousand  miles. 
Sailing  northward  seven  thousand  h\  one  reaches 
the  kingdom  of  Wen-shin.  Five  thousand  // 
eastward  is  the  country  of  Ta-han.  Twenty 
thousand  li  beyond  is  the  new  world — which  the 
record  names  as  the  country  of  Fu-sang. 

Perhaps  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  present 
the  original  record,  as  translated  by  Professor 
S.  Wells  Williams : 

"  In  the  first  year  of  the  reign,  Yung-yuen,  of 
the  Emperor  Tung  Hwan-han,  of  the  Tsi  dyn- 
asty (A.  D.  499),  a  Shaman  priest  named  Hwui 
Shin  arrived  at  King-chau  from  the  kingdom  of 
Fu-sang.  He  related  as  follows  : 

"  '  Fu-sang  lies  east  of  the  kingdom  of  Ta-han 
more  than  twenty  thousand  li ;  it  is  also  east  of 
the  Middle  Kingdom  (China).  It  produces 
many  fu-sang  trees,  from  which  it  derives  its 
name.  The  leaves  of  the  fu-sang-  resemble  those 
of  the  tung  tree.  It  sprouts  forth  like  the  bam- 
boo, and  the  people  eat  the  shoots.  Its  fruits  re- 
semble the  pear,  but  it  is  red ;  the  bark  is  spun 
into  cloth  for  dresses  and  woven  into  brocade. 
The  houses  are  made  of  planks.  There  are  no 
walled  cities  with  gates.  The  (people)  use  char- 
acters and  writing,  making  paper  from  the  bark 
of  foe.  fu-sang.  There  are  no  mailed  soldiers,  for 
they  do  not  carry  on  war.  The  law  of  the  land 
prescribes  a  southern  and  a  northern  prison. 
Criminals  convicted  of  light  crimes  are  put  into 


22  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

the  former,  and  those  guilty  of  grievous  offenses 
into  the  latter.  Criminals,  when  pardoned,  are 
let  out  of  the  southern  prison,  but  those  in  the 
northern  prison  are  not  pardoned.  Prisoners  in 
the  latter  marry.  Their  boys  become  bondmen 
when  they  are  eight  years  old  and  the  girls 
bondwomen  when  nine  years  old.  Convicted 
prisoners  are  not  allowed  to  leave  their  prison 
while  alive.  When  a  nobleman  (or  an  ofRcial) 
has  been  convicted  of  crime,  the  great  assembly 
of  the  nation  meets  and  places  the  criminal  in  a 
hollow  (or  pit)  ;  they  set  a  feast,  with  wine, 
before  him,  and  then  take  leave  of  him.  If  the 
sentence  is  a  capital  one,  at  the  time  they  sepa- 
rate they  surround  (the  body)  with  ashes.  For 
crimes  of  the  first  grade  the  sentence  involves 
only  the  person  of  the  culprit ;  for  the  second  it 
reaches  the  children  and  grandchildren ;  while 
the  third  extends  to  the  seventh  generation. 

"  *  The  king  of  this  country  is  termed  yueh-ki ; 
the  highest  rank  of  nobles  is  called  tui-li ;  the 
next,  little  tui-li ;  and  the  lowest,  no-cha-sha. 
When  the  king  goes  abroad,  he  is  preceded  and 
followed  by  drummers  and  "trumpeters.  The 
color  of  his  robes  varies  with  the  years  in  the 
cycle  containing  the  ten  stems.  It  is  azure  in 
the  first  two  years  ;  in  the  second  two  years  it  is 
red ;  it  is  yellow  in  the  third,  white  in  the  fourth, 
and  black  in  the  last  two  years.  There  are  oxen 
with  long  horns,  so  long  that  they  will  hold 


THE  AGE   OF   DISCOVERY.  23 

things — the  biggest  as  much  as  five  pecks.  Ve- 
hicles are  drawn  by  oxen,  horses,  and  deer,  for 
the  people  of  that  land  rear  deer  j  ust  as  the 
Chinese  rear  cattle,  and  make  cream  of  their  milk. 
They  have  red  pears,  which  will  keep  a  year 
without  spoiling ;  water-rushes  and  peaches  are 
common.  Iron  is  not  found  in  the  ground, 
though  copper  is  ;  they  do  not  prize  gold  or 
silver,  and  trade  is  conducted  without  rent,  duty, 
or  fixed  prices. 

"  'In  matters  of  marriage,  it  is  the  law  that 
the  (intending)  son-in-law  must  erect  a  hut 
before  the  door  of  the  girl's  house,  and  must 
sprinkle  and  sweep  the  place  morning  and  even- 
ing for  a  whole  year.  If  she  then  does  not  like 
him,  she  bids  him  depart ;  but  if  she  is  pleased 
with  him  they  are  married.  The  bridal  cere- 
monies are,  for  the  most  part,  like  those  of  China. 
A  fast  of  seven  days  is  observed  for  parents  at 
their  death,  five  for  grandparents,  and  three  days 
for  brothers,  sisters,  uncles,  or  aunts.  Images 
to  represent  their  spirits  are  set  up,  before  which 
they  worship  and  pour  out  libations  morning 
and  evening ;  but  they  wear  no  mourning  or 
fillets.  The  successor  of  the  king  does  not 
attend  personally  to  government  affairs  for  the 
first  three  years.  In  olden  times  they  knew 
nothing  of  the  Buddhist  religion,  but  during  the 
reign  Ta-ming  of  the  Emperor  Hiao  Wu-ti,  of 
the  Lung  dynasty  (A.  D.  458),  from  Ki-pin  five 
beggar  priests  went  there.  They  traveled  over 


24  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

the  kiiigdoin,  everywhere  making  known  the 
laws,  canons,  and  images  of  that  faith.  Priests 
of  regular  ordination  were  set  apart  among  the 
natives,  and  the  customs  of  the  country  became 
reformed.' ' 

There  are  several  other  narratives  which  re- 
late to  Fu-sang,  or  to  countries  near  it  in  situa- 
tion. This,  of  them  all,  seems  to  describe  most 
truthfully  a  real  country.  Fu-sang  may  have 
been  Japan,  or  it  may  have  been  Mexico.  Hwui 
Shin's  account  differs  very  widely  in  some  of  its 
details,  from  our  knowledge  of  either. 

All  the  literature  of  the  subject  of  Chinese 
discoveries  of  America  has  been  examined  and 
reviewed  in  Mr.  H.  P.  Vining's  excellent  book, 
An  Inglorious  Columbus.  Mr.  Vining  be- 
lieves Fu-sang  to  be  Mexico,  and  \hzfu-sang  tree, 
in  his  view,  is  the  maguey. 

When  we  come  to  the  Scandinavian  records, 
we  find  much  that  is  not  only  plausible  but  in- 
disputable evidence  of  the  validity  of  their  claims. 
We  know  that  the  Scandinavian  vikings,  splen- 
did old  rascals,  in  their  many-oared  galleys,  often 
sailed  far  out  into  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic.  In 
the  year  860,  one  of  these  glorious  cut-throats, 
Naddoddr  (pronounce  it  if  you  can !),  was  blown 
upon  the  coast  of  Iceland.  In  876  a  similar 
experience  befell  another  viking,  and  he  reported 
having  seen  in  the  distance  the  coast  of  an  un- 
known shore. 

In  the  year  981,  Eric  the  Red,  an  outlaw  of 


THE   AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  25 

Iceland,  sailed  in  search  of  this  coast,  and,  find- 
ing it,  set  a  bad  example  to  future  real  estate 
dealers  by  naming  its  bleak  length  Greenland. 

Subsequent  to  this  discovery,  according  to  the 
sagas  of  Iceland,  frequent  visits  to  the  south 
were  made,  and  one  Bjarni,  distancing  all  pre- 
vious explorers,  found  a  fertile  country  to  which 
he  gave  the  name  of  Vinland.  This  was  in  the 
year  985,  and,  although  the  stories  of  these  ex- 
ploits are  vague  and  untrustworthy  enough  in 
detail,  there  seems  little  doubt  that  Bjarni  really 
visited  the  eastern  coast  of  America  at  that  date. 

No  attempt  was  made  at  colonization  ;  indeed, 
it  is  not  recorded  that  the  galleys  of  Bjarni 
stopped  at  the  new  land  at  all.  The  wind  which 
had  carried  them  thither  changed  suddenly,  and 
they  were  borne  back  to  Iceland,  where  it  is  safe 
to  presume  that  the}^  all  got  uproariously  drunk, 
and  did  a  great  deal  of  bragging  on  the  strength 
of  their  adventure. 

The  second  voyage  to  the  new  country  was 
made  by  Leif,  son  of  Erie  the  Red,  about  the 
year  1000.  He  touched  first  a  barren  land 
covered  with  icy  mountains  which  he  named 
Helluland.  Spreading  sail  again  he  turned  the 
prow  of  his  vessel  southward  until  he  reached  a 
level  country  witli  trees  and  grassy  slopes.  This 
he  called  Markland.  Two  days  sailing  brought 
the  vessel  to  an  island  at  which  the  sailors  dis- 
embarked, for  the  weather  was  warm  and  the 


26  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

sight  of  land  alluring.  They  stayed  here  for  a 
few  hours  and  then  steered  for  the  main- 
land. A  river  flowed  out  from  a  lake,  and 
in  this  lake  they  anchored,  carried  the  lug- 
gage from  the  ship,  and  built  themselves 
houses.  It  was  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  fer- 
tile land  they  had  ever  seen,  and  they  resolved 
to  spend  the  winter  there.  One  of  the  boldest 
of  them  left  his  companions  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  salmon  fishing  in  the  river  and  lake,  and  de- 
voted himself  to  exploring  the  surrounding 
country.  He  found  quantities  of  wine-berries 
(probably  grapes),  and  with  these  berries  and 
with  some  wood  they  loaded  their  ship  and  set 
sail  for  Greenland. 

Seven  years  later  another  expedition  was  fitted 
out  with  three  ships,  and  under  command  of  this 
same  Leif.  They  sailed  far  to  the  southward 
and  finally  came  to  a  promontory,  to  the  right  of 
which  lay  a  long,  sandy  beach.  On  this  beach, 
or  rather  on  a  tongue  of  land  that  ran  out  from 
it,  they  found  the  keel  of  a  ship.  They  called 
this  point,  Kjlarnes  (Keel  Cape),  and  the  beach, 
Furdustrandir  (Long  Strand). 

When  the  expedition  set  out,  King  Olaf 
Tryggvason  gave  Lief  two  famous  runners,  a 
Scotch  man  and  woman,  named  Haki  and  Hekja. 
These  people  were  set  on  shore  shortly  after 
they  had  passed  Furdustrandir,  and  ordered  to 
run  to  the  south,  explore  the  country  and  return 


THE   AGE   OF   DISCOVERY.  27 

in  three  days.  At  the  end  of  the  designated 
period  they  returned,  the  man  bringing  a  bunch 
of  wine-berries  and  the  woman  an  ear  of  wheat. 
This  was  promising,  and  the  expedition  voted  to 
continue  the  southward  course. 

Coming  to  a  bay  in  which  was  an  island 
around  which  flowed  rapid  currents,  they  gave  it 
the  name  of  Straumey  (Stream  Island).  The 
island  was  so  covered  with  the  nests  of  eider 
ducks  that  it  was  difficult  to  step  without  tread- 
ing on  the  eggs.  Here  they  resolved  to  tarry, 
and,  unloading  the  vessels,  built  habitations. 
Whether  they  stayed  a  long  or  a  short  time,  and 
what  adventures  befell  them,  of  good  or  evil,  we 
know  not. 

A  fuller  record  is  that  of  Karlsefne,  who  with 
another  hero,  Snorro,  and  our  old  friend  Bjarni, 
sailed  southward  a  long  time  until  they  came  to 
the  river  which  ran  out  through  the  lake  into 
the  sea.  The  river  was  too  shallow  to  allow  the 
ships  to  enter  without  high  water.  Karlsefne 
sailed  with  his  men  into  its  mouth,  and  named 
the  place  Hop.  Here  were  found  fields  of  wrild 
wheat,  and  on  the  high  ground  wine-berries 
grew  abundantly.  The  woods  were  full  of  game 
and  the  men  found  plenty  of  amusement  for  a 
fortnight.  The  only  remarkable  thing  they  saw 
was  a  number  of  skin  boats  filled  with  swart, 
ugly  people  who  rowed  near  the  shore  and 
gazed  in  astonishment  at  the  Northmen.  They 


28  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

had  coarse  hair,  large,  wild  eyes  and  broad 
faces.  They  remained  gazing  at  Karlsefne's 
men  for  a  little  and  then  rowed  away  to  the 
southward. 

With  these  people  the  explorers  soon  estab- 
lished communication,  trading  red  cloth,  which 
the  natives  seemed  to  prefer  to  anything  else, 
for  skins  and  furs.  They  wished  to  purchase 
swords  and  spears,  but  these  the  Northmen  re- 
fused to  part  with.  As  long  as  the  red  cloth 
held  out  their  relations  with  the  Skraelings,  as 
they  had  named  the  natives,  continued  friendly. 
But  one  day,  as  the  saga  has  it,  while  they  were 
trafficking,  a  bull  which  Karlsefne  had  with  him 
ran  out  of  the  wood  and  bellowed  so  fiercely  that 
the  Skraelings  were  frightened  out  of  their  wits, 
and  fled  in  their  skin  boats,  back  to  the  south- 
land. 

Three  weeks  later  great  numbers  of  them  re- 
turned, and,  with  loud  cries,  sprang  on  shore,  pre- 
pared to  do  battle.  Their  weapons  were  slings, 
and  very  uncomfortable  weapons  they  proved  to 
be,  but  the  Northmen  stood  their  ground 
valiantly,  until  all  of  a  sudden  they  saw  the 
Skraelings  raise  on  a  pole  something  that  looked 
like  an  air-filled  bag  of  a  blue  color.  They 
threw  this  at  the  enemy,  and  when  it  struck  the 
ground  it  exploded  violently.  At  this  Karlsefne 
and  his  men  retreated,  never  stopping  until  they 
gained  a  rocky  stronghold,  where  they  made 


THE   AGE   OE   DISCOVERY.  29 

another  stand,  and  at  length  succeeded  in  van- 
quishing the  Skraelings. 

Shortly  afterward  the  expedition  returned  to 
Greenland.  Many  other  Northmen  visited  Vin- 
land,  according  to  the  sagas,  but  no  effort  was 
made  at  colonization.  It  is  a  matter  of  conjec- 
ture as  to  the  exact  location  of  the  country  ex- 
plored by  them.  Some  writers  believe  it  to  have 
been  Labrador,  and  others  place  it  as  far  south 
as  Rhode  Island.  The*  Skraelings,  as  they  are 
described  in  the  sagas,  certainly  resemble  Ksqui- 
maux  more  nearly  than  Indians.  But  then  we 
have  no  positive  proof  that  the  Northmen  ever 
actually  visited  America  at  all.  The  presump- 
tion is  that  they  did,  but  all  matters  of  detail 
must  necessarily  remain  doubtful,  even  if  we 
accept  their  narratives  in  the  main  as  true. 

But  whatever  credit  is  to  be  given  to  the  Asi- 
atic, Norse,  or  other  early  discoverers  of  America, 
or  whatever  knowledge  of  this  hemisphere  may 
have  been  possessed  by  Europeans  in  classic  times, 
to  Christopher  Columbus  must  be  ascribed  the 
honor  of  opening  the  Western  World  to  actual 
settlement  by  civilized  man.  This  illustrious 
man  was  born  in  1436,  in  all  but  the  lowest  rank 
of  life.  His  father  was  a  woolcomber  of  Genoa. 
But  the  education  of  the  lad  was  made  as  com- 
plete as  the  scanty  means  of  his  parents  and  the 
limited  knowledge  of  that  day  would  permit. 
At  an  early  age  he  learned  to  read  and  write, 


30  "  MY  COUNTRY,  1TIS   OF  THEE.5' 

and  obtained  some  knowledge  of  arithmetic, 
drawing,  and  painting.  Then  he  was  sent  to 
the  college  at  Pavia,  one  of  the  best  institutions 
of  learning  of  those  times.  Here  he  studied 
grammar  and  the  Latin  language ;  but  his  at- 
tention, fortunately  for  the  world,  was  directed 
principally  to  studies  bearing  upon  the  maritime 
profession,  which  he  intended  to  follow.  He  was 
instructed  in  geometry,  astronomy,  and  navi- 
gation. Like  many  of  the  young  men  of  Genoa, 
he  had  an  irresistible  inclination  toward  the  sea. 
This  was  but  natural,  as  that  city  was  one  of  the 
chief  ports  of  the  world.  Later  in  life,  Columbus 
ascribed  this  inclination  to  a  direct  impulse  from 
God,  but  this  was  only  after  his  career  had  been 
crowned  with  such  brilliant  success. 

Geography  was  at  this  time  the  fashionable 
fad  of  the  day.  The  world  .was  just  beginning 
to  recover  the  lost  geographical  knowledge,  lim- 
ited as  it  was,  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Monks 
and  churchmen  were  still  splitting  hairs  over 
absurdly  unimportant  problems  :  How  many 
angels  could  stand  on  the  point  of  a  needle  ? 
whether  a  lie,  under  certain  circumstances,  was 
not  truth  ?  whether  black  might  not,  in  certain 
cases,  be  truly  called  white  ?  and  other  questions 
of  equal  vitality.  But  Arabian  philosophers,  at 
the  same  time,  were  measuring  degrees  of  lati- 
tude and  calculating  the  circumference  of  the 
earth.  Their  studies  and  achievements  inevi- 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  31 

tably  found  their  way  to  the  minds  of  many 
Christians  in  Europe,  who,  although  detesting 
the  religious  creed  of  the  Mohammedans,  were 
able  to  see  that  their  science  was  not  to  be  de- 
spised. The  works  of  Ptolemy  and  Strabo  had 
also  just  come  into  popular  circulation,  and  cre- 
ated as  much  of  a  sensation  as  any  realistic  novel 
of  the  present  day.  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal 
had  made  voyages  of  important  discovery  along 
the  African  coast,  and  thus  had  inspired  all  the 
nations  of  Western  Europe  with  the  hope  of 
lighting  upon  some  yet  unknown  region  of 
fabulous  wealth. 

All  these  circumstances  made  the  time  par- 
ticularly fitting  for  the  most  important  event  of 
the  ages  since  the  Christian  era.  The  hour  had 
come  and  the  man  also.  At  fourteen  years  of 
age  Columbus  left  the  school  at  Pavia,  and  began 
the  life  of  a  sailor.  This  simply  meant  to  cruise 
from  one  port  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to 
another,  half  as  a  merchantman,  half  as  a  man- 
of-war.  Every  vessel  was  hourly  exposed  to  the 
attacks  of  pirates,  especially  those  of  the  Bar- 
bary  States,  or  of  the  war  vessels  of  hostile 
countries.  In  the  midst  of  such  dangers  and 
difficulties  Columbus  spent  his  early  years.  But 
the  coarseness,  ignorance,  and  violence  with 
which  he  was  surrounded  did  not  degrade  his 
noble  mind.  He  had  within  him  the  seeds  of 
greatness,  a  fine  tone  of  thought,  an  ardent  im- 


32  "  MY   COUNTRY,  *TIS   OF  THEE." 

agination,  and  a  loftiness  of  aspiration.  Every 
leisure  hour  was  spent  in  study  and  profitable 
observation,  thus  improving  the  too  meagre  edu- 
cational advantages  of  his  brief  school  life. 

The  year  1470  found  Columbus  at  Lisbon, 
drawn  thither  with  hundreds  of  other  navigators 
and  scientific  men  by  the  fame  of  Prince  Henry's 
discoveries.  Strange  tales  were  told  of  unex- 
plored regions  in  the  fiery  South,  where  the  rocks 
were  red  hot  and  the  water  of  the  ocean  forever 
boiling.  Even  to  these  extravagant  tales  Colum- 
bus gave  some  heed,  but  his  thoughts  were  prin- 
cipally fixed  on  the  possibility  of  finding  a  new 
world  far  to  the  west.  Our  hero  was  now  in  the 
prime  of  life,  a  tall,  muscular  man  of  command- 
ing aspect.  His  light  brown  hair  was  already 
prematurely  gray,  and  his  expression  of  coun- 
tenance was  grave  and  scholarly.  He  was  simple 
and  abstemious  in  his  diet,  affable  and  engaging 
in  his  manners  and  a  devout  Roman  Catholic. 
But  under  this  exterior  was  concealed  a  nature 
of  the  most  ardent  enthusiasm,  not  less  energetic 
than  that  of  Peter  the  Hermit  or  Ignatius  Loyola. 
His  religious  temperament  led  him  often  to  the 
services  of  the  Church,  and  it  was  there  that  he 
first  met  a  lady  of  high  rank  who  soon  afterward 
became  his  wife.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Don 
Bartolomeo  Monis  de  Palestrello,  an  Italian 
cavalier,  one  of  Prince  Henry's  most  distin- 
guished officers.  The  use  of  his  father-in-law's 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  33 

fine  collection  of  maps  and  charts  was  of  great 
service  to  Columbus,  who  now  gave  his  attention 
to  geographical  studies  more  thoroughly  than 
ever.  He  talked  or  corresponded  with  all  the 
learned  men  of  the  day.  He  began  to  trace 
charts  of  his  own,  correcting  the  popular  errors 
and  traditions  by  the  aid  of  his  own  greater 
knowledge  and  experience.  Rumor,  inspired 
by  the  stories  of  early  adventures,  had  studded 
the  far  western  ocean  with  wondrous  islands,  on 
one  of  which  seven  Christian  bishops,  fleeing 
from  Pagan  persecution,  had  founded  seven 
splendid  cities.  There  were  tales  of  a  lofty 
mountainous  country  to  be  seen  on  clear  days 
far  to  the  westward  from  the  Canary  Islands. 
Plato  had  told  of  the  ancient  continent  of  Atlan- 
tis, which  had  been  sunk  beneath  the  waves  of 
the  ocean.  Marco  Polo,  the  Venetian  adven- 
turer, had  told  of  the  great  wealth  of  fhe  East 
Indies,  which  he  said  could  be  reached  by  sailing 
westward  from  Hurope. 

However  much  he  discounted  the  more  ex- 
travagant of  these  tales,  Columbus  was  deeply 
impressed  by  them  all.  He  became  well  con- 
vinced that  far  to  the  west  there  lay  an  unex- 
plored region,  probably  a  part  of  the  East  Indies, 
and  he  believed,  with  an  intense  religious  zeal, 
that  God  had  specially  commissioned  him  to 
discover  and  explore  it.  Thereupon  he  conse- 
crated the  whole  of  his  remaining  life  to  the 

3 


34  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

execution  of  this  task.  No  hazard,  nor  obstacle, 
nor  disappointment  for  a  moment  daunted  him. 
He  first  applied  to  the  Portuguese  Court,  stating 
the  grounds  of  his  belief  in  the  existence  of  an 
undiscovered  country  in  the  western  ocean,  and 
asking  for  the  means  of  ascertaining  the  truth 
of  it.  His  proposition  was  received  with  indif- 
ference, and  finally  rejected  under  the  influences 
of  jealousy  and  intrigue.  Then  he  returned  to 
his  native  Genoa,  and  there  sought  the  same  aid 
and  encouragement ;  but  Genoa  was  already  de- 
clining under  the  stress  of  domestic  discord  and 
foreign  war,  and  was  unable  to  do  anything  for 
him. 

The  fortunes  of  Columbus  were  now  at  a  low 
ebb.  He  had  exhausted  his  private  means,  and' 
was  in  actual  destitution.  Downcast  and  disap- 
pointed, often  begging  his  food  from  door  to 
door,  he  made  his  way  on  foot  from  Genoa  to 
the  Court  of  Spain.  Leading  his  little  son  by 
the  hand,  he  one  day  approached  the  Spanish 
capital,  and  asked  for  bread  and  water  at  a  con- 
vent door.  The  prior  saw  him,  talked  with  him, 
became  interested  in  him  and  his  schemes,  and 
offered  to  introduce  him  at  Court.  Thus  Columbus 
obtained  an  interview  with  Cardinal  Mendoza, 
the  chief  minister  and  confidential  adviser  of 
the  King  and  Queen,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella. 
The  Cardinal  was  a  man  of  extensive  informa- 
tion and  liberal  mind,  who  perceived  at  once  the 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  35 

value  of  Columbus's  theories  and  commended 
them  to  the  sovereigns.  The  King,  also,  was 
apparently  a  good  judge  of  men,  and  appreciated 
the  character  and  ability  of  Columbus.  But  he 
was  not  willing  to  embark  hastily  in  so  great  an 
enterprise  as  that  proposed.  He  first  called 
together  a  council  of  all  the  most  learned 
astronomers  and  geographers  in  his  kingdom, 
and  to  them  referred  Columbus,  with  his  maps 
and  charts  and  theories. 

This  council  met  at  Salamanca.  It  was  entirely 
composed  of  friars,  priests,  and  monks,  who 
monopolized  all  the  learning,  both  secular  and 
religious,  of  that  age.  Some  were  men  of  large 
and  philosophic  minds  ;  others,  narrow  bigots  ; 
"but  all  were  imbued  with  the  notion  that  geo- 
graphical discovery  had  reached  its  limits  long 
before.  In  the  presence  of  this  learned  body, 
Columbus,  a  simple  seaman,  strong  in  nothing 
save  the  energy  of  his  convictions  and  the  fire 
of  his  enthusiasm,  had  to  appear  to  defend  a 
scheme  which  to  them  must  have  appeared  the 
dream  of  a  madman.  The  difficulties  of  his 
position  may  be  guessed  from  the  nature  of  some 
of  the  objections  made  to  his  undertaking.  His 
mathematical  propositions  and  demonstrations 
were  met  with  quotations  from  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  the  Psalms,  the  Prophets,  the  Epistles, 
the  Gospels,  and  half  a  dozen  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Church.  When  he  argued  that  the  earth 


36  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

was  spherical,  his  opponents  quoted  one  of  the 
Psalms,  where  the  heavens  are  said  to  be  ex- 
tended like  a  hide.  Some  members  of  the 
council,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  would  admit 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth,  but  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  circumnavigating  it,  first,  because  of 
the  intolerable  heat  of  the  torrid  zone,  and 
second,  because  it  would  take  at  least  three 
years  to  accomplish  the  voyage,  in  which  time 
the  explorers  would  die  of  hunger,  it  being  im- 
possible to  carry  provisions  sufficient  for  so  long 
a  time.  Still  others  said  that  if  a  ship  did  reach 
India,  she  could  never  return,  for  the  roundness 
of  the  globe  would  place  a  hill  in  her  way,  up 
which  the  strongest  wind  could  not  blow  her. 

Such  were  the  absurd  notions  held  by  the  fore- 
most scholars  of  those  days.  It  is  needless  here 
to  recount  such  arguments  further,  or  the  argu- 
ments, now  familiar  to  every  school-boy,  used  by 
Columbus  in  support  of  his  theory.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  was  treated  with  incredulity,  sus- 
picion, and  contempt,  and  narrowly  escaped  be- 
ing condemned  for  heresy.  After  a  long  con- 
sultation the  assembly  broke  up  without  arriving 
at  any  decision.  Then  the  war  with  the  Moors 
of  Granada  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  Court 
for  several  years  and  exhausted  its  financial  re- 
sources. But  after  years  of  weary  waiting  the 
wish  of  Columbus  was  granted.  Queen  Isabella 
pledged  some  of  her  jewels  and  in  other  ways 


THE   AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  37 

raised  a  sufficient  sum  to  equip  his  expedition. 
In  the  month  of  April,  1492,  an  agreement  was 
drawn  up  making  him  Viceroy  and  Governor- 
General  of  all  the  lands  he  might  discover  and 
placing  a  number  of  ships  and  men  at  his  dis- 
posal. On  the  morning  of  August  3d,  1492,  he 
and  his  120  comrades  embarked  in  three  small 
ships,  the  Nina,  the  Pinta,  and  the  Santa  Maria, 
and  set  sail  from  the  little  port  of  Palos,  in  An- 
dalusia, on  the  most  important  voyage  in  history. 
In  a  few  days  the  expedition  reached  the 
Canary  Islands,  the  then  western  boundary  of 
the  known  world.  Beyond  this  all  was  specula- 
tion. And  of  all  the  members  of  the  expedition 
Columbus  alone  had  unquestioning  faith  in  the 
object  of  the  enterprise.  Many  of  the  sailors  be- 
lieved, when  they  had  lost  sight  of  the  European 
shore,  that  they  were  doomed  to  inevitable  de- 
struction. Thus  doubting  and  murmuring  they 
sailed  onward  \veek  after  week.  At  one  time 
their  discontent  and  fears  culminated  in  actual 
mutiny,  and  they  proposed  to  put  Columbus  in 
irons  or  throw  him  overboard  and  return,  if  pos- 
sible, to  Europe.  But  he  alternately  calmed 
their  discontent  by  promises  of  rich  rewards  and 
awakened  their  fears  by  threats  of  immediate 
punishment.  Thus  for  two  months  he  kept 
them  in  hand.  Then  as  they  again  grew  des- 
perate and  bade  fair  to  defy  his  authority  alto- 
gether, indications  of  land  not  far  ahead  began 


38          "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

to  appear.  Birds  hitherto  unknown  were  seen 
flying  above  the  waves  and  wheeling  about  the 
ships,  and  plants  and  bits  of  wood  were  seen  in 
the  water.  Then  the  branch  of  a  tree  bearing 
red  berries,  and  a  curiously  carved  instrument, 
were  picked  up.  These  things  inspired  even  the 
common  sailors  with  hope  that  they  were  indeed 
approaching  a  shore. 

At  last,  on  October  8th,  1492,  after  sixty-five 
days  of  navigation  on  unknown  seas,  they  dis- 
covered land.  It  was  not  the  American  continent, 
but  one  of  the  Bahama  Islands,  to  which  Colum- 
bus reverently  gave  the  name  of  St.  Salvador. 
It  was  inhabited  by  Indians  who  received  the 
strangers  kindly.  Columbus  formally  took  pos- 
session of  the  country  in  the  name  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  the  King  and  Queen  of  Spain. 
And  thus  the  dream  of  his  youth  was  fulfilled 
and  the  ambition  of  his  manhood  was  accom- 
plished. The  Western  World  was  discovered. 
Subsequently  he  visited  Cuba,  Jamaica,  Hayti, 
Porto  Rico,  and  other  islands,  but  did  not  reach 
the  main  land  until  his  third  voyage,  when  he 
visited  Venezuela.  He  named  the  islands  the 
West  Indies,  supposing  them  to  be  a  part  of  the 
great  Bast  Indian  Archipelago. 

In  the  month  of  April,  1493,  he  returned  to 
the  Spanish  Court.  The  City  of  Barcelona  was 
ablaze  with  flags  and  the  air  was  vocal  with  the 
roar  of  artillery,  while  all  the  bells  of  the 


THE   AGE   OF    DISCOVERY.  39 

churches  rang  peals  of  triumph  in  his  honor. 
Years  before  Columbus  had  come  thither  on  foot 
and  in  rags,  begging  his  bread.  Now  he  rode 
the  streets  in  more  than  royal  pomp,  crowned 
with  the  admiration  and  acclaim  of  all  the  popu- 
lace. Seven  natives  of  the  Western  World 
marched  in  his  train,  and  there  was  an  almost 
endless  display  of  gold  and  gems,  of  carven  idols 
and  sculptured  masks,  of  birds  and  beasts  and 
reptiles,  of  trees  and  plants  and  fruits.  Above 
all  waved  two  banners,  one  that  of  Spain  which 
he  had  unfurled  above  the  new  continent,  and 
the  other  the  admiral's  flag  bearing  in  golden 
letters  the  inscription, 

For  Castilla  y  por  Leon 
Nuevo  Mundo  hallo  Colon, 

or,  For  Castile  and  Leon  Columbus  has  discov- 
ered a  new  world. 

Thus  he  came  to  the  Court  where  the  King 
and  Queen  awaited  him,  and  was  greeted  by 
them  as  their  equal.  There,  seated  among  the 
nobles  of  Spain,  he  gave  a  brief  account  of  the 
most  striking  events  of  his  voyage.  The  sover- 
eigns listened  to  him  with  profound  emotion  and 
then  fell  on  their  knees  to  give  thanks  to  God 
for  so  great  an  achievement.  For  the  time  being 
no  honor  was  too  great  to  bestow  upon  Colum- 
bus. He  was  commissioned  to  make  other 
voyages  to  the  New  World  and  to  take  posses- 


40  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF    THEE." 

\ 

sion  of  all  lands  there  in  the  name  of  Spain.  Yet 
it  was  only  a  few  years  after  that  that  the  memory 
of  his  splendid  services  was  outweighed  by  the 
malice  of  his  foes.  He  was  actually  arrested, 
imprisoned  and  loaded  with  irons,  and  at  the  end 
died  in  disgrace  and  neglect,  at  Valladolid,  May 
2oth,  1506. 

The  discovery  made  by  Columbus  was  fol- 
lowed up  by  the  Spaniards  with  the  greatest  en- 
thusiasm. Within  twenty  years  the  four  largest 
of  the  West  Indian  Islands  were  the  seats  of 
flourishing  colonies,  while  as  yet  other  nations 
were  contenting  themselves  with  occasional 
voyages  of  discovery  along  the  coasts  of  the 
continent.  The  great  fertility  of  the  soil,  the 
mildness  of  the  climate,  but  above  all  the  find- 
ing of  gold  and  precious  stones,  kept  the  Span- 
iards alive  to  the  importance  of  their  new  posses- 
sions and  encouraged  immigration.  Columbus 
himself  made  four  voyages  to  the  New  World, 
discovering,  in  his  third  voyage,  the  South 
American  continent  near  the  mouth  of  the  Ori- 
noco River,  and  reaching  in  his  fourth,  Hondu- 
ras and  the  coast  to  the  south  of  this  region. 
He  never  knew  what  a  great  discovery  he  had 
made  and  to  his  death  rested  under  the  delusion 
that  he  had  found  the  eastern  shore  of  Asia. 

In  1499  Alonzo  de  Ojeda,  who  had  previously 
accompanied  Columbus  to  the  new  country, 
made  a  voyage  on  his  own  account  and  explored 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  41 

four  hundred  leagues  of  the  coast  of  South 
America.  With  him  sailed  Amerigo  Vespucci, 
who  afterward  made  three  independent  voyages 
to  America  and  wrote  the  first  account  of  it ; 
this  was  published  in  1507,  and  popular  preju- 
dice has  supposed  that  his  name  came  thus  to  be 
given  to  the  New  World. 

At  the  recent  Congress  of  Americanists  in 
Paris,  this  point  was  discussed  with  much  warmth. 
M.  Jules  Marcon  asserted  that  Vespucci's  name 
was  Alberico  instead  of  Amerigo,  and  that  he 
changed  it  after  the  new  continent  was  named. 
The  true  derivation  of  the  name  America  is 
Amerique,  that  being  the  Indian  name  of  a 
range  of  mountains  in  Central  America.  Still, 
some  historians  declare  that  very  range  of 
mountains  to  have  been  called  Amerisque,  and 
it  is  true  that  in  the  Florentine  language  Alberi- 
co and  Amerigo  are  identical.  Then  there  is 
extant  a  map  of  the  world  prepared  by  one  Val- 
lescu  of  Majorca  in  1490,  on  the  back  of  which 
is  a  note  to  the  effect  that  the  map  was  purchased 
for  one  hundred  and  twenty  ducats  in  gold  by 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  the  merchant.  This  proves 
that  even  if  his  name  was  not  Amerigo,  he  some- 
times wrote  it  so. 

Other  voyagers  were  Pedro  Alonzo  Nigno  and 
Vincent  Pinzon,  the  latter  being  the  first  Span- 
iard to  cross  the  equinoctial  line.  He  discovered 
the  mouth  of  the  Amazon  River  and  from  there 


42  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

sailed  north  to  the  Carribean  Sea  and  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  In  the  same  year  (1499),  Diego 
Lope  explored  the  coast  of  South  America  far  to 
the  southwest. 

The  discovery  and  conquest  of  Mexico  and 
Peru  followed.  The  New  World  became  the 
Mecca  of  every  reckless  and  adventurous  spirit 
in  Europe.  Ojeda  sailed  under  a  grant  from  the 
King  of  Spain  to  found  a  colony  at  San  Sebas- 
tian, and  with  him  went  Francisco  Pizarro,  who 
thus  made  the  first  step  in  his  adventurous 
career.  The  colony  at  San  Sebastian  was  aban- 
doned, and  on  the  return  voyage  one  vessel 
foundered.  The  other,  commanded  by  Pizarro, 
reached  Carthagena,  where  it  was  met  by  a  fleet 
conveying  men  and  provisions  to  the  colony. 
On  one  of  these  ships  was  the  adventurer  Bal- 
boa, who  had  smuggled  himself  on  board  to 
escape  his  creditors.  Learning  that  the  colony 
toward  which  they  were  sailing  had  been  deserted, 
Balboa  proposed  going  to  Darien,  which  coast  he 
had  already  visited.  The  proposal  met  with 
favor  and  a  new  town  was  founded  under  the 
name  of  Santa  Maria  de  la  Antigua  del  Darien. 
Trouble  began  immediately,  as  usual.  The  man 
who  had  brought  the  fleet  thither,  Hncisco,  a 
lawyer  of  San  Domingo,  was  imprisoned  and 
Balboa  was  made  alcade  of  the  colony. 

The  natives  of  Darien  viewed  their  visitors 
with  anything  but  favor,  and  endeavored  by 


THE  AGE   OF   DISCOVERY.  43 

strategy  to  induce  them  to  move  on.  They  re- 
presented the  neighboring  district  of  Coyba  to 
be  much  richer  in  gold  and  provisions  than  their 
own,  and  Pizarro,  with  only  six  men,  went  on 
an  exploring  expedition.  The  natives  were 
found  to  be  hostile,  and  on  one  occasion  the 
Spaniards  were  surrounded  by  four  hundred 
warriors,  with  whom  they  had  a  very  bloody 
battle.  One  hundred  and  fifty  natives  were 
killed,  many  more  wounded,  while  the  Spaniards 
all  escaped  with  their  lives,  one  man  only  being 
too  badly  hurt  to  fly.  Retreating  to  Santa 
Maria,  they  reported  their  misfortune,  and  it  is 
to  the  credit  of  Balboa  that  he  obliged  them  to 
return  and  bring  back  their  wounded  companion. 
Coyba  was  conquered,  and  an  alliance  formed 
with  its  ruler.  Adjacent  to  it  was  a  range  of 
mountains,  at  the  foot  of  which  was  a  very  rich 
and  highly  civilized  country  called  Comagre. 
The  chief  invited  the  Spaniards  to  his  domain, 
treated  them  with  hospitality,  and  astonished 
them  with  the  splendor  of  his  possessions.  His 
palace  was  a  wonderful  structure  of  wood,  di- 
vided into  many  apartments.  In  one  of  these 
chambers,  the  dried  and  embalmed  bodies  of  the 
chieftain's  ancestors,  clothed  in  cotton  robes, 
richly  embroidered  with  gold  and  precious  stones, 
were  suspended  from  the  walls.  A  large  amount 
of  gold  and  seventy  slaves  were  presented  to  the 
Spaniards,  One-fifth  of  the  gold  was  set  apart 


44  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

for  the  King,  and  over  the  remainder  the  Chris- 
tians held  such  a  dispute  that  the  savages  were 
aghast.  Finally  the  young  chieftain  scornfully 
remarked  that  if  they  were  so  greedy  for  gold, 
he  could  direct  them  to  a  country  where  it  was 
more  common  than  iron  was  in  their  land. 
"  When  you  have  passed  this  range  of  moun- 
tains," he  continued,  "you  will  behold  another 
ocean,  on  which  are  vessels  only  inferior  to  those 
which  brought  you  hither,  equipped  with  sails 
and  oars,  but  navigated  by  people  naked  like 
ourselves."  Undoubtedly  the  chief  alluded  to 
Peru.  This  certain  proof  of  the  existence  of 
another  ocean  filled  Balboa  with  delight.  He 
imagined  that  the  country  described  formed  a 
part  of  the  vast  region  of  the  Bast  Indies. 
Preparations  for  the  enterprise  were  immediately 
begun,  but  in  the  midst  of  it  all  Balboa  was 
summoned  to  court  to  answer  the  charges 
brought  against  him  by  Bncisco.  Instead  of 
obeying  the  command,  however,  he  determined 
to  effect  the  passage  to  the  South  Sea  before  his 
successor  could  arrive  from  Spain.  The  Isthmus 
of  Darien  is  only  sixty  miles  in  breadth,  but  a 
chain  of  mountains,  a  continuation  of  the  Andes, 
runs  through  its  whole  extent.  Its  valleys  are 
marshy  and  unhealthy,  being  inundated  by  rains 
which  prevail  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  year. 
These  marshes  are  even  more  impenetrable  than 
the  forests  which  cover  the  mountains,  and  to 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  45 

this  day  the  crossing  is  not  much  easier  than  it 
was  then. 

No  man  but  Balboa  could  have  accomplished 
it.  He  was  not  any  more  courageous  than 
his  followers,  but  he  possessed  great  powers  of 
magnetism  as  well  as  prudence,  sagacity,  and 
amiability  ;  in  a  word,  he  had  genius,  the  genius 
of  leadership.  His  soldiers  were  his  children. 
He  wished  to  bear  the  heaviest  burdens  himself; 
his  post  in  battle  was  the  most  dangerous  of  all ; 
his  endurance  surpassed  that  of  the  strongest 
men.  His  army  consisted  of  one  hundred  and 
ninety  Spaniards,  one  thousand  Indians,  useful 
to  carry  baggage,  and  some  fierce  blood-hounds. 

Balboa  set  forth  on  the  ist  of  September,  1513. 
The  journey  was  estimated  to  be  of  six  days' 
duration,  but  it  was  only  after  twenty-five  days 
of  desperate  fighting,  and  of  struggles  with  dis- 
ease and  fatigue,  that  they  reached  the  summit 
of  the  mountain  from  which  Balboa  had  been  in- 
formed the  great  ocean  could  be  seen. 

Commanding  his  army  to  halt,  Balboa  advanced 
alone  to  the  apex  and  there  beheld  the  South 
Sea  stretching  before  him  in  boundless  extent. 
Amid  great  exultation  he  took  formal  possession 
of  land  and  sea,  cutting  the  king's  name  on  trees 
and  erecting  crosses  and  mounds  of  stones  as 
records  thereof. 

Leaving  the  greater  part  of  his  men  where 
they  were,  Balboa  proceeded  with  eighty  Span- 


46  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

iards,  and  under  the  guidance  of  a  friendly  chief, 
toward  the  coast.  Arriving  at  the  borders  of 
one  of  the  vast  bays,  he  rushed  into  the  ocean 
with  drawn  sword  and  called  upon  the  witnesses 
to  observe  that  he  possessed  it  in  the  name  of 
Spain. 

He  now  wished  to  make  conquest  of  the  coun- 
tries to  the  south,  which  the  natives  declared  to 
be  a  great  and  wealthy  empire,  but  having  too 
few  men  to  attempt  the  enterprise,  he  returned  to 
Darien,  carrying  with  him  a  treasure  valued  at 
nearly  half  a  million  of  dollars — the  largest 
treasure  yet  collected  in  America.  He  sent  mes- 
sengers to  Spain,  but  before  these  arrived  Don 
Pedrarias  Davila  had  been  sent  out  to  supersede 
him  in  command.  The  King,  however,  in  con- 
sideration of  his  services,  sent  letters  appointing 
Balboa  Adelantado  or  Admiral.  The  enormous 
project  of  conveying  ship-building  material 
across  the  Isthmus  was  accomplished,  and  two 
brigantines  were  constructed.  Adverse  weather 
and  other  misfortunes  prevented  the  Spaniards 
from  reaching  Peru,  and  Pedrarias  recalled  Bal- 
boa to  Darien.  Balboa  obeyed,  never  dreaming 
of  the  treachery  awaiting  him.  He  was  seized 
and  imprisoned,  and  finally  condemned  to  death 
by  the  jealous  Pedrarias,  and  the  sentence  was 
carried  out  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the 
colonists. 

The  conquest  of  Peru  was  afterward  accoin- 


THE   AGK   OF   DISCOVERY.  47 

plished  by  Pizarro,  who,  while  he  was  as  able  a 
man  as  Balboa,  was  much  more  cruel  and  un- 
scrupulous. Three  years  later  Magellan  entered 
the  South  Sea,  after  sailing  around  the  southern 
extremity  of  the  continent.  It  was  Magellan 
who  gave  this  ocean  the  name  Pacific,  in  recog- 
nition of  the  fine  weather  he  encountered  in 
crossing  it.  His  fleet  reached  the  islands  of  the 
Indian  Archipelago,  and  returned  to  Europe  by 
way  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  thus  completing 
the  first  circumnavigation  of  the  globe. 

In  the  same  year  which  witnessed  the  unjust 
execution  of  Balboa  (1517),  the  northern  coast 
of  Yucatan  was  explored,  and  also  the  southern 
coast  of  Mexico.  Instead  of  encountering  naked 
savages,  the  explorers  were  surprised  to  find 
well-clad  and  highly  civilized  people,  so  bold  and 
warlike  as  to  drive  off  the  intruders  with  great 
slaughter.  Velasquez,  governor  of  Cuba,  deter- 
mined to  conquer  the  wealthy  country  thus  dis- 
covered, and  prepared  a  fleet  of  ten  vessels,  which 
he  sent  out  under  command  of  Hernando  Cortes, 
a  man  who  had  already  achieved  some  military 
distinction.  He  landed  in  Mexico  on  March 
4th,  1519,  where  his  ships  and  artillery,  and 
especially  his  horses,  created  the  wildest  fear 
and  astonishment  among  the  natives,  who  re- 
garded the  strangers  as  divine  beings.  They 
were  soon  to  be  undeceived,  however,  for  a  reign 
of  war  and  oppression  was  begun,  which  resulted 


48  "  MY  COUNTRY,  VlS   OF  THEE." 

in  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Montezuma,  the 
levelling  of  their  ancient  temples,  and  the  ulti- 
mate extinction  of  the  Aztec  nation. 

Meanwhile,  the  mainland  of  the  American 
continent  had  been  visited  and  partly  explored. 

The  first  voyage  to  the  northern  coast  was 
made  by  John  Cabot  in  1497,  uuder  the  auspices 
of  Henry  VIII  of  England.  His  object  was  less 
the  discovery  of  a  new  continent  than  the  find- 
ing of  a  northwest  passage  to  the  coast  of  Asia. 
Cabot  sighted  land  on  the  a6th  of  June,  probably 
the  Island  of  Newfoundland.  On  the  3d  of  July 
he  reached  the  coast  of  Labrador.  He  was  then 
the  first  of  modern  navigators  to  discover  the 
North  American  continent,  Columbus  being  a 
whole  year  behind  him.  Cabot  explored  the 
coast  for  nine  hundred  miles,  in  a  southerly 
direction,  and  returned  to  England.  The  next 
year  his  son,  Sebastian,  visited  the  same  region, 
still  looking  for  that  northwest  passage. 

The  Portuguese  also,  made  early  voyages  with 
the  same  illusory  object  in  view.  In  1500, 
Caspar  Cortereal  reached  the  American  conti- 
nent. In  his  second  voyage  his  ship  was  lost, 
and  his  brother,  who  went  in  search  of  him,  also 
perished. 

In  1524,  Francis  I  of  France  resolved  to  have 
a  share  in  these  new  discoveries.  A  company  of 
Breton  sailors  had  already  partly  explored  the 
coast.  As  early  as  1506  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence 


WASHINGTON. 

Direct  Reproduction  of  the  Original  Painting,  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  in  the  JIuseum  of 
the  Fine  Arts,  Boston.     The  Property  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum. 


THE  AGE   OF   DISCOVERY.  49 

was  discovered.  A  squadron  of  four  ships,  under 
Giovanni  Verrazano,  an  Italian  navigator  in  the 
service  of  Francis,  explored  the  coast  from 
the  Carolinas  northward,  probably  visiting  New 
York  and  Narragansett  Bays.  He  also  searched 
for  the  northwest  passage,  and  on  his  return 
succeeded  in  convincing  the  King  that  no  such 
passage  existed. 

In  1534  a  second  expedition  was  fitted  out 
under  command  of  Jacques  Cartier,  a  fearless 
mariner,  who  had  previously  made  fishing  voy- 
ages to  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland.  This  ex- 
pedition consisted  of  two  vessels,  and  left  St. 
Malo  on  the  2Oth  of  April.  After  a  short  stay 
at  Newfoundland,  Cartier  sailed  northward, 
passed  through  the  Straits  of  Belleisle  and 
entered  the  St.  Lawrence. 

Here,  on  the  24th  of  July  they  landed  and 
erected  a  cross,  surmounted  by  the  lilies  of 
France.  The  natives  proved  friendly,  and  two 
men  were  prevailed  upon  to  accompany  the  re- 
turning voyagers.  The  following  year  a  second 
expedition  was  sent  out  under  Cartier,  with  in- 
structions to  explore  carefully  the  St.  Lawrence, 
to  establish  a  settlement,  and  to  traffic  with  the 
Indians  for  gold.  Of  this  latter  commodity  they 
found  none,  but  the  river  was  explored  as  far  as 
the  spot  where  now  stands  Montreal.  The 
natives  seem  to  have  had  a  very  correct  knowl- 
edge of  their  country,  for  they  told  Cartier  that 


50  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS    OF   THEE." 

it  would  take  three  months  to  sail  in  their  canoes 
up  the  course  of  the  river  and  that  it  ran  through 
several  great  lakes,  the  largest  like  a  vast  sea.  Be- 
yond the  farthest  lake  was  another  river  which 
ran  in  a  southerly  direction.  This  was  the 
Mississippi.  The  Canadian  winter  had  now  set 
in  and  the  explorers  suffered  terribly  from  the 
cold  and  disease.  As  soon  as  spring  appeared 
they  returned  home.  Like  other  adventurers  of 
the  age,  they  repaid  the  hospitality  of  the  natives 
with  the  blackest  ingratitude  and  treachery. 
They  kidnapped  the  chief  Donacona — whose 
village  occupied  the  site  of  Quebec,  and  who  had 
fed  and  lodged  the  explorers — and  forced  him, 
with  eight  warriors,  to  accompany  them  to  France, 
where  the  unhappy  savages  died  soon  after  their 
arrival. 

The  third  expedition  under  Cartier  in  a  fleet 
fitted  out  by  De  Roberval,  a  rich  nobleman  of 
France,  was  not  so  successful.  The  Indians 
had  not  forgiven  the  outrage  perpetrated  upon 
their  chief,  and  the  white  men  were  received  at 
Stradacona  (Quebec)  with  every  sign  of  hatred 
and  enmity.  Cartier,  finding  his  position  here 
so  unpleasant,  not  to  say  dangerous,  moved  up 
the  river  to  Cape  Rouge,  where  he  moored  three 
of  his  vessels  and  sent  the  other  two  back  to 
France  for  supplies.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
found  a  colony,  and  the  summer  was  spent  in  an 
unsuccessful  search  for  gold.  Both  the  colony 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  51 

and  the  search  for  gold  were  abandoned  after 
another  severe  winter  and  Cartier  and  his  men 
returned  to  France. 

It  was  this  same  greed  for  gold  which  led  the 
Spaniards  to  attempt  the  exploration  of  the 
southern  part  of  the  American  continent.  As 
early  as  1512  Juan.  Ponce  de  Leon  discovered  a 
land  which  he  called  Florida,  partly  because  he 
first  saw  it  on  Baster  Sunday  (Pascua  floridd] , 
and  partly  because  it  seemed  to  his  delighted 
gaze  a  veritable  "  land  of  flowers."  Ponce  de 
Leon  had  another  object  beside  gold  hunting; 
he  was  an  old  man  and  he  loathed  his  years. 
He  had  come  hither  lured  by  a  wonderful  tale 
of  a  fountain  which  gave  eternal  youth  to  whoso- 
ever bathed  in  its  waters.  To  find  this  grand 
restorer  of  vigor  and  bloom,  Ponce  de  Leon  and 
his  followers  wandered  through  terrible  forests 
and  marshes,  enduring  every  hardship  and  de- 
privation, running  hourly  risks  of  death.  That 
such  a  dream  could  ever  have  been  cherished  by 
enlightened  and  educated  people  need  not  appear 
so  strange  if  we  consider  what  a  succession  of 
new  and  astonishing  scenes  had  passed  before 
the  eyes  of  the  old  world  in  the  short  space  of 
ten  years.  No  wonder  their  imaginations  were 
inflamed  and  their  credulity  limitless.  In  this 
new  land,  of  which  the  preceding  ages  had  been 
utterly  ignorant,  everything  was  different  from 
that  with  which  the  old  world  was  familiar.  Any- 


52  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

thing  seemed  possible,  after  the  impossible  had 
happened.  De  Leon  made  two  visits  after  his 
fountain  ;  in  the  second  one  he  was  killed  by  the 
Indians. 

In  1528  Pamphilo  de  Narvaez  made  an  effort 
to  take  possession  of  Florida  in  the  name  of 
Charles  V  of  Germany.  He  met  with  such  hos- 
tility from  the  natives,  however,  that  after  months 
of  wandering  he  reached  the  Gulf  with  a  mere 
handful  of  men  out  of  the  six  hundred  with 
whom  he  had  landed.  Building  five  miserable 
boats,  these  crazy  adventurers  attempted  to  follow 
the  line  of  the  coast  to  the  Mexican  settlements. 
Four  boats  were  lost  in  a  storm  ;  the  survivors 
landed  and  sought  to  cross  the  continent  to  the 
Spanish  colonies  at  Sonora.  It  seems  incredi- 
ble, but  in  this  enterprise  four  of  the  mem  actu- 
ally succeeded.  Among  them  was  Cabeca  de 
Vaca,  treasurer  of  the  expedition.  Their  appear- 
ance in  Europe  nine  years  after  their  departure 
caused  the  greatest  sensation,  and  the  excitement 
created  by  their  narrative  was  intense.  The 
passion  for  adventure  became  stronger  than  ever 
among  the  Spaniards,  and  when  the  already 
celebrated  Hernaudo  de  Soto,  who  had  been  with 
Pizarro  in  Peru,  asked  for  and  was  granted  per- 
mission to  take  possession  of  Florida  in  the 
name  of  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  he  had  a  multitude 
of  volunteers  to  his  standard. 

De  Soto  was  first  appointed  governor  of  Cuba 


TH3   AGE   OF   DISCOVKRY.  53 

that  lie  might  turn  to  account  the  resources  of 
that  wealthy  island.  His  fleet  of  nine  vessels 
and  force  of  six  hundred  men,  sailed  from 
Havana  on  the  i8th  of  May,  1539,  and  ten  days 
later  anchored  in  Tampa  Bay.  The  first  remark- 
able adventure  that  befel  them  was  an  encounter 
with  one  of  the  companions  of  Cabeca  de  Vaca, 
who  had  been  held  all  this  time  captive  among 
the  Indians.  He  had  acquired  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  their  language,  and  his  services  as 
mediator  and  interpreter  soon  became  invaluable. 
Led  by  Ortiz — the  captive — the  explorers 
wandered  through  the  unknown  land  until 
spring.  Then  a  native  offered  to  guide  them  to 
a  distant  country,  governed  by  a  woman,  and 
rich  in  "  yellow  metal,"  which  the  Spaniards  un- 
derstood to  be  gold,  but  which  turned  out  to  be 
only  copper.  The  dominion  of  the  Indian  queen 
was  reached  at  last,  after  much  fighting  and 
bloodshed.  The  old  chronicles  give  a  pictur- 
esque and  rather  pathetic  account  of  the  meeting 
between  the  poor  cacica  and  the  invaders.  She 
came  forth  to  welcome  them,  alighting  from  her 
litter  and  making  gestures  of  pleasure  and 
amity,  taking  from  her  neck  a  heavy  string  of 
pearls  and  presenting  it  to  De  Soto.  He  ac- 
cepted the  gift,  and  for  a  time  kept  up  a  pretense 
of  friendship;  but,  having  obtained  all  the  in- 
formation the  queen  had  to  give,  he  made  her 
prisoner  and  robbed  her  and  her  people  of  all 


54  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

their  valuables,  even  pillaging  the  graves  of  dead 
nobles  for  pearls.  It  is  gratifying  to  know  that 
the  queen  effected  her  escape  from  the  guards, 
and  that  she  regained  a  box  of  pearls  on  which 
De  Soto  set  especial  store. 

The  Spaniards  now  altered  their  course,  and, 
taking  a  northwesterly  direction,  they  found 
themselves,  after  a  few  months,  at  the  foot  of 
the  Appalachian  range  of  mountains,  which, 
rather  than  cross,  they  turned  their  backs  upon, 
and  wandered  into  the  lowlands  of  what  is  now 
Alabama,  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  these  very 
mountains  were  rich  in  the  gold  they  so  ardently 
coveted. 

The  autumn  of  1540  brought  what  remained 
of  the  party  to  a  large  village  called  Mavilla,  the 
site  of  the  modern  city  of  Mobile,  where  a  terri- 
ble battle  took  place.  Mavilla  was  burned  to 
ashes,  and  when  the  fight  ended  the  victorious 
Spaniards  found  themselves  in  a  desperate  situ- 
ation— at  a  distance  from  their  ships,  their  pro- 
visions gone,  and  enemies  on  every  side.  The 
common  soldiers,  by  this  -time,  had  had  quite 
enough  of  exploration,  and  wished  to  return  to 
the  coast.  But  De  Soto,  who  had  received  secret 
information  that  his  fleet  was  even  now  anchored 
in  the  Bay  of  Pensacola,  six  days'  journe}^  from 
Mavilla,  determined  to  make  one  more  effort  to 
redeem  his  honor  by  a  notable  discovery  of  some 
sort.  He  forced  his  men  to  journey  northward, 


THE  AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  55 

and  in  December  they  reached  a  Chickasaw 
village,  in  what  is  now  the  State  of  Mississippi. 
By  spring  they  had  fought  their  way  completely 
across  the  State,  and  in  May  they  reached  the 
banks  of  the  mighty  river  from  which  the  State 
takes  its  name.  Not  knowing  that  he  had  made 
his  great  discovery,  De  Soto  went  to  work  to 
build  boats  and  barges  with  which  to  cross  the 
river.  Constantly  harassed  by  the  natives,  the 
explorers  continued  their  northward  wanderings 
until  they  reached  the  region  of  the  present  State 
of  Missouri.  Proceeding  westward,  they  en- 
camped for  the  winter  at  the  present  location  of 
Little  Rock,  Arkansas.  But  the  spot  turned 
out  to  be  an  unhealthy  one ;  the  white  men 
began  to  succumb  to  disease ;  Juan  Ortiz,  the 
chief  helper,  died  ;  scouts  sent  out  to  explore  the 
neighborhood  brought  back  darkest  reports  of 
impenetrable  wildernesses,  and  of  bands  of 
hostiles  creeping  up  from  every  side  to  attack 
them.  Saddest  of  all,  De  Soto,  broken  with 
disease  and  long  endurance,  lay  down  to  rise  no 
more.  Calling  his  little  army  around  him,  he 
asked  their  pardon  for  the  sufferings  he  had 
brought  upon  them,  and  named  Luis  de  Alvaredo 
as  his  successor.  The  following  day  the  unhappy 
De  Soto  breathed  his  last,  and  was  buried  secretly 
outside  the  camp ;  but,  fearing  an  immediate 
attack  from  the  natives  should  the  death  of  the 
hero  be  made  known,  and  the  newly-made  grave 


56  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

exciting  suspicion  among  the  Indians  in  the 
neighborhood,  Alvaredo  had  the  corpse  disin- 
terred in  the  night,  and,  wrapped  in  clothes 
made  heavy  with  sand,  dropped  into  the  Mis- 
sissippi. 

Alvaredo  then  led  his  people  westward,  hoping 
to  reach  the  Pacific  coast.  But  after  long  months 
of  wandering,  and  dreading  to  be  overtaken  by 
winter  on  the  prairies,  they  retraced  their  steps 
to  the  Mississippi,  where  they  pitched  camp  and 
spent  six  months  building  boats  in  which  to  go 
down  the  river.  A  terrible  voyage  of  seventeen 
days,  between  banks  lined  with  Indians,  who 
plied  them  pitilessly  with  poisoned  arrows, 
brought  them  to  the  Gulf,  and  a  further  weary 
cruise  along  the  coast  of  Louisiana  and  Texas 
landed  them  at  the  Spanish  settlement  of 
Panuco,  in  Mexico.  This  was  in  October,  1543  ; 
they  had  been  wandering  for  nearly  four  years. 

The  English  were  rather  tardy  in  following 
the  lead  of  the  Spanish,  French,  and  Portuguese 
explorers,  but,  once  started,  they  pursued  their 
researches  with  great  vigor.  In  1562  one  of 
their  adventurers,  Sir  John  Hawkins,  engaged 
in  the  slave  trade,  and  carried  cargoes  of  negroes 
to  the  West  Indies.  In  1577,  Sir  Francis  Drake 
accomplished  the  circumnavigation  of  the  globe. 
Attempts  were  made  at  the  same  period  to  dis- 
cover the  northwestern  passage,  by  Willoughby, 
Frobisher,  Henry  Hudson,  and  others.  The 


THE   AGE  OF   DISCOVERY.  67 

only  attempt  to  found  a  colony  in  the  New 
World  during  this  century  was  made  by  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh ;  his  step-brother,  Sir  Humph- 
rey Gilbert,  had  obtained  the  first  charter  ever 
granted  an  Englishman,  for  a  colony,  but  his 
project  failed,  and  he  himself  perished  at  sea. 

A  patent  was  granted  Raleigh,  constituting  him 
lord  proprietary,  with  almost  unlimited  powers, 
according  to  the  Christian  Protestant  faith,  of 
all  land  which  he  might  discover  between  the 
thirty-third  and  fortieth  degrees  of  north  lati- 
tude. Under  this  patent  Raleigh  dispatched 
two  vessels  under  the  command  of  Philip  Ami- 
das  and  Arthur  Barlow.  They  landed  on  the 
island  of  Wococken  and  took  possession  in  the 
name  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  country  they 
called  Virginia,  and  such  glowing  accounts  did 
they  send  back  to  England  that  seven  vessels 
under  Sir  Richard  Grenville  were  sent  out,  bear- 
ing one  hundred  and  fifty  colonists.  As  soon 
as  these  landed,  Sir  Richard  Grenville  took  the 
ships  back  to  England,  capturing  a  rich  Spanish 
prize  on  the  way.  The  colony  fared  very  badly 
after  a  time,  Lane,  the  governor,  being  utterly 
unfit  for  his  office.  The  Indians  wishing  to  get 
rid  of  their  visitors,  induced  them  to  ascend  the 
Roanoke  River,  on  the  upper  banks  of  which, 
they  declared,  dwelt  a  nation  skillful  in  refining 
gold,  whose  city  was  inclosed  with  a  wall  of 
pearls.  After  the  gold  rushed  the  colonists,  but 


58  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

they  found  only'  famine  and  distress.  The  In- 
dians, on  their  return,  refused  to  give  them  any 
more  provisions,  and  even  ceased  to  cultivate 
corn,  hoping  to  drive  out  the  Englishmen  alto- 
gether. In  revenge,  the  white  men,  having  in- 
vited the  chief  to  a  conference,  fell  upon  him  and 
slew  him,  with  many  of  his  people.  This  was 
the  end  of  their  peaceful  relations  with  the  In- 
dians. The  colony  was  on  the  verge  of  starva- 
tion when  Sir  Francis  Drake,  the  slave-trading 
nobleman,  appeared  outside  the  harbor  with  a 
fleet  of  twenty-three  ships.  At  the  urgent 
prayer  of  the  starving  settlers,  Sir  Francis  car- 
ried them  back  to  England.  Hardly  had  they 
gone  before  a  ship  laden  with  supplies,  dis- 
patched by  Raleigh,  arrived.  Finding  the 
colony  vanished,  the  ship  returned.  Before  it 
reached  England,  Sir  Richard  Grenville  arrived 
at  Roanoke  with  three  ships.  After  searching 
in  vain  for  the  missing  colony,  he  also  returned, 
leaving  fifteen  men  on  the  island  to  hold  posses- 
sion for  the  English.  Still  undiscouraged, 
Raleigh  sent  out  a  second  colony,  this  time 
choosing  agriculturists,  and  sending  with  them 
their  wives  and  children.  On  reaching  Roanoke 
they  found  the  bones  of  the  fifteen  men  Gren- 
ville had  left,  and  the  fort  in  ruins.  Meanwhile 
the  Spanish  invasion  was  threatening  England. 
Raleigh  was  one  of  the  most  active  in  devising 
schemes  for  resistance.  It  was  almost  a  year  be- 


THE   AGE   OF    DISCOVERY.  59 

fore  he  was  able  to  send  supplies  to  his  colony 
at  Roanoke ;  this  he  did  at  last,  but  the  captain, 
instead  of  proceeding  straight  on  his  mission, 
went  in  chase  of  two  Spanish  prizes,  came  to 
grief,  and  was  obliged  to  return  to  Kngland. 
By  this  time  Raleigh's  means  were  almost  ex- 
hausted, but  he  managed  to  send  out  the  relief 
ships,  but  they  arrived  too  late.  The  island  was 
a  desert  and  the  only  clue  to  the  fate  of  the 
colony  was  the  word  "  Croatian  "  on  the  bark  of 
a  tree.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  they 
escaped,  through  the  kindness  of  the  Indians  to 
Croatian ;  perhaps  they  were  received  into  some 
tribe  and  became  a  part  of  the  wild  men  ;  the 
Indians  themselves  have  such  a  tradition. 
Raleigh  sent  five  different  search  parties 
after  his  little  colony,  but  none  of  them  ever 
had  the  least  success. 

In  1602  Bartholomew  Gosnold  reached  the 
shores  of  Massachusetts,  and,  sailing  southward, 
landed  on  a  promontory  which  he  called  Cape 
Cod.  He  also  discovered  the  islands  of  Martha's 
Vineyard  and  Nantucket.  On  the  former  they 
built  a  store-house  and  a  fort,  and  prepared  to 
settle,  but  when  the  ships  got  ready  to  sail,  they 
lost  their  resolution  and  insisted  upon  returning 
to  England. 


CHAPTER  II. 

"GOOD  OLD  COLONY  TIMES." 

THE  history  of  the  United  States  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  formation  in 
England  of  a  company  for  the  purpose  of  form- 
ing colonies  in  America.  This  was  called*  the 
Virginia  Company,  and  to  it  was  given  the  right 
to  hold  all  the  land  from  Cape  Fear  to  the  St. 
Croix  River.  The  Company  had  two  divisions 
— the  London  Company,  with  control  over  the 
southern  territory,  and  the  Plymouth  Company, 
controlling  the  northern.  It  was  the  London 
Company  who  founded  the  first  colony.  Three 
vessels,  under  Captain  Christopher  Newport, 
sailed  from  England  in  the  year  1607,  with  in- 
structions to  land  on  Roauoke  Island.  A  storm 
drove  them  into  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  so  delighted 
were  they  with  the  beauty  of  its  shores  that  they 
determined  ':o  settle  there.  Sailing  up  the  James 
River,  :hey  found  a  convenient  spot  for  landing, 
and  on  the  i3th  of  May  the  colony  of  Jamestown 
was  established.  There  were  about  a  hundred 
men  in  the  party,  many  of  them  gentlemen  of 
more  or  less  precarious  fortune,  whose  object  in 
leaving  their  native  land  was  almost  entirely 
selfish.  They  expected  to  find  gold,  and  so 
great  was  their  greed  that  they  went  directly  to 

60 


UGOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES.''  61 

washing  dust,  instead  of  cultivating  the  ground. 
The  summer  that  followed  was  a  terrible  one. 
The  location  proved  unhealthy,  and  more  than 
half  the  colony  died  of  a  pestilence.  Only  the 
friendly  generosity  of  the  Indians  saved  the  rest 
from  starvation.  The  situation  was  rendered 
more  unendurable  by  quarrels  and  dissensions 
in  the  Governing  Council,  which  consisted  of 
seven  men  appointed  before  leaving  Hngland. 
In  this  Council  had  been  Gosnold,  the  explorer, 
Captain  Newport,  and  Captain  John  Smith. 
This  latter  personage  was  a  man  of  marked  in- 
dividuality, one  of  those  characters  not  uncom- 
mon in  history,  who  are  as  cordially  detested  by 
half  the  world  as  they  are  warmly  admired  by 
the  other  half.  At  first  prevented  by  his  ene- 
mies from  taking  his  place  in  the  Council  at  all, 
arrested  and  kept  under  a  cloud  for  months,  the 
following  autumn  finds  him  in  supreme  and 
solitary  control  of  the  entire  colony. 

Things  began  to  brighten  a  little  at  James- 
town. Supplies  were  plenty,  and,  under  the 
careful  management  of  Smith,  promised  to  last 
all  winter.  Having  nothing  else  to  complain 
about,  the  dissenters  now  began  to  mutter 
against  Smith  for  not  having  discovered  the 
source  of  the  Chickahominy,  the  theory  being 
that  the  South  Sea,  or  Pacific  Ocean,  was  not  far 
distant,  and  that  some  river  running  from  the 
northwest  would  be  sure  to  lead  to  it.  Whether 


62  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

or  not  Smith  had  much  hope  of  reaching  the 
Pacific  via  the  Chickahominy  River  is  uncertain, 
but  he  did  make  an  attempt  to  trace  the  stream 
to  its  head. 

His  adventures  on  that  memorable  voyage 
have  been  told  in  every  history  of  the  colonies 
and  in  every  school  geography  since.  How 
much  is  truth  and  how  much  imagination  it  is 
impossible  to  decide ;  it  should  be  stated  that 
the  original  story  came  from  a  person  not  so 
much  celebrated  for  veracity  as  for  other  excel- 
lent qualities — that  is  to  say,  from  Captain  John 
Smith  himself. 

Nine  white  men  accompanied  him  on  the  trip 
up  the  river.  When  at  length  the  barge  could 
advance  no  further,  Captain  Smith  returned 
some  miles  to  a  bay,  where  he  moored  his  bark 
out  of  danger,  and,  taking  two  men  and  two 
Indian  guides,  he  proceeded  in  a  canoe  twenty 
miles  higher  up  the  river.  The  men  in  the 
barge  had  strict  orders  not  to  leave  until  their 
commander  returned.  As  soon  as  he  was  fairly 
out  of  sight,  the  order  was  disobeyed ;  the  men 
went  on  shore,  and  one  of  them  was  killed  by 
Indians. 

Smith,  meantime,  had  neared  the  head  of  the 
river.  The  country  was  very  wet  and  marshy, 
but  there  was  no  indication  of  the  proximity  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  canoe  was  tied  up,  and 
Smith  took  his  gun  and  one  Indian  and  went  on 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  63 

shore  after  food  for  his  party.  But,  as  it  turned 
out,  the  landing-place  was  ill-chosen.  The  two 
men  in  the  canoe  were  set  upon  by  Indians  and 
killed,  and  Smith,  after  a  desperate  resistance, 
was  captured.  He  asked  for  their  chief,  and 
was  led  before  Opechancanough.  Smith  pre- 
sented to  him  a  mariner's  compass,  which  so 
entertained  the  savages  that  they  forbore  their 
first  murderous  intentions  and  contented  them- 
selves with  leading  him  captive  to  the  town  of 
Orapakes,  which  was  about  twelve  miles  from 
what  is  now  the  city  of  Richmond.  Here  he  was 
confined  in  one  of  the  houses,  and  an  enormous 
quantity  of  food  set  before  him.  It  is  not  proba- 
ble that  his  appetite  was  very  good,  under  the 
circumstances.  His  captivity  was  not  devoid  of 
pleasant  features,  however ;  an  Indian,  who  had 
received  some  kindness  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jamestown  colonists,  showed  his  gratitude  by 
presenting  to  Smith  a  warm  fur  garment. 
While  the  orgies  and  incantations  were  going  on 
— supposedly  with  a  view  to  divine  the  pris- 
oner's intentions  concerning  the  Indians — Opit- 
chapan,  brother  of  Chief  Opechancanough,  who 
dwelt  a  little  above,  came  down  to  see  the  great 
white  man,  and  entertained  him  hospitably. 

At  last  it  was  decided  to  take  the  prisoner  to 
the  chief  place  of  council,  and  to  let  the  exalted 
Powhatan  pronounce  his  fate.  Accordingly  they 
journeyed  to  Werowocomoco,  on  the  York  River 


64          "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

—then  known  as  the  Pamannkee.  Here  they 
found  Powhatan,  reclining  in  rude  state  on  a 
sort  of  a  throne  covered  with  mats,  and  further 
adorned  by  the  presence  of  two  dusky  maidens, 
splendid  with  feathers  and  beads  and  red  paint. 
The  captive  was  received  with  solemn  ceremony, 
a  feast  was  spread,  and  then  a  long  consultation 
took  place.  The  result  was  a  sentence  of  death. 
Two  large  stones  are  brought  and  laid  one 
upon  the  other  before  Powhatan  ;  behold  savage 
hands  seize  upon  the  unhappy  Smith  and  lay 
his  head  upon  the  stones ;  the  war-clubs  are 
poised  in  air,  the  chief's  hand  starts  to  give  the 
fatal  sign ;  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  one  gentle 
heart  is  throbbing  wildly  with  mingled  love  and 
fear ;  poor  little  Pocahontas,  while  the  stones 
were  being  brought,  put  in  her  plea  for  mercy, 
but  it  was  not  even  noticed ;  she  is  the  dearest 
thing  in  the  world  to  that  stern  old  chief,  but 
even  she  has  never  yet  dared  dispute  his  au- 
thority. But  when  she  sees  that  hand  raised, 
her  fear  is  swept  away,  everything  is  swept  away 
but  love;  she  utters  one  mad  cry,  and,  flying 
from  her  place,  throws  herself  down  beside  him, 
clasps  his  form,  in  her  arms  and  lays  her  head 
upon  his.  The  fairest  woman  in  the  world  saves 
the  bravest  man.  Oh!  most  charming  picture  in 
history !  Men  pretend  to  believe  that  it  is  all  a 
fabrication.  What  if  it  is  ?  To  leave  it  out  of 
the  history  books  takes  all  the  color  from  the 


"  GOOD  OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  65 

story  of  those  days.  If  it  didn't  happen,  it 
might  have  happened.  Certainly  something 
happened,  for  two  days  later  Smith  was  per- 
mitted to  return  to  Jamestown  on  the  absurd 
little  condition  of  sending  back  two  great  guns 
and  a  grindstone.  This  condition  Smith  faith- 
fully fulfilled,  to  his  credit,  and  in  addition  to  the 
cannon  and  the  grindstone  he  sent  presents  to 
Powhatan's  wives  and  children.  Records  are  so 
stupid  at  times ;  they  are  careful  in  this  case  to 
mention  the  grindstone,  but  they  give  not  the 
slightest  hint  of  what  Captain  Smith  sent  Poca- 
hontas.  Smith's  conduct  all  through  that  affair 
is  puzzling.  By  every  canon  of  romance,  he 
should  have  married  the  princess.  That  it  was 
otherwise  is  the  best  proof  of  the  truth  of  the 
story,  for  true  stories  always  end  inartistically. 

When  Smith  returned  to  Jamestown,  he  found 
things  going  very  badly,  and  the  number  of  the 
colonists  reduced  to  forty.  He  set  to  work  to 
encourage  them,  and  to  make  his  task  easier,  a 
ship  laden  with  stores  and  with  additional  set- 
tlers now  arrived.  The  Indians  were  friendly, 
and  great  numbers  of  them  appeared  at  James- 
town to  trade.  Pocahontas  came,  too,  and  brought 
all  sorts  of  things  to  Captain  Newport  and  to 
Smith,  \vhich  she  had  undoubtedly  wheedled  out 
of  her  father,  the  great  Powhatan. 

When  Captain  Newport  returned  to  England, 
he  took  with  him  twenty  turkeys  which  Powha- 


66  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

tan  had  given  him  in  exchange  for  twenty  swords. 
This  bargain  pleased  the  old  chief  so  much  that 
he  tried  to  effect  a  similar  one  with  Smith. 
Failing,  and  becoming  infuriated,  he  ordered  his 
people  to  go  to  Jamestown  and  take  the  weapons 
by  force.  The  President  of  the  colony,  under 
pretense  of  orders  from  England  not  to  offend 
the  natives,  would  have  allowed  the  robbery  to 
take  place,  but  Smith  rose  in  wrath  and  drove 
the  intruders  from  the  settlement. 

Another  ship,  the  "  Phoenix,"  now  arrived. 
The  colony  was  increased  to  nearly  two  hundred 
souls.  There  were  plenty  of  provisions  and  the 
sword  difficulty,  thanks  to  the  mediation  of 
Pocahontas,  had  been  amicably  settled,  so  that 
all  hostilities  were  at  an  end  for  the  time  being. 
The  year  was  1608. 

Smith  continued  his  explorations,  sailing 
around  Chesapeake  Bay  and  up  to  the  head  of 
the  Potomac  River.  He  traveled  not  less  than 
three  thousand  miles  that  summer,  and  that  his 
worth  was  beginning  to  be  appreciated  at  James- 
town is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  on  his  return 
he  had  the  pleasure  of  accepting  the  presidency 
of  the  colony.  This  had  been  offered  him  before, 
but  he  had  declined  it. 

Now  he  set  about  his  duties  in  earnest.  The 
men  were  put  to  work,  some  making  glass,  pre- 
paring tar  and  pitch,  while  Smith  with  thirty 
others  went  five  miles  below  the  fort  to  cut  down 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES."  67 

trees  and  to  saw  planks.  The  Jamestown  colony 
was  always  unfortunate  in  having  too  many  ad- 
venturer-gentlemen in  it.  Smith  had  a  hard  time 
with  them,  but  by  his  tact  and  good  management 
he  got  more  work  out  of  them  than  any  one  else 
could  have  done. 

Their  life,  diversified  with  some  struggles  with 
the  Indians,  a  good  deal  of  internal  bickering 
and  considerable  ill-luck  with  crops,  etc.,  con- 
tinued for  another  year.  In  1609  an  addition  to 
the  colony  of  five  hundred  men  and  women,  with 
stores  and  provisions,  set  sail  from  England. 
But  these  new  settlers  had  no  sooner  landed 
than  new  troubles  began.  The  leaders,  although 
they  brought  no  commission  with  them,  insisted 
on  assuming  authority  over  the  original  colony, 
defying  Smith,  whom  they  feared  and  hated. 

Anarchy  reigned  for  a  time.  The  ring-leaders, 
RatclifFe,  Archer,  and  others,  were  imprisoned. 
West,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  men,  formed 
an  independent  settlement  at  the  falls  of  the 
James  River,  and  another  one  hundred  and 
twenty,  under  Martin,  established  themselves  at 
Nansemond.  But  these  leaders  were  unable  to 
deal  fairly  with  the  Indians,  and  the  new  settle- 
ments were  abandoned  after  much  bloodshed. 
Smith  did  what  he  could  to  effect  peace,  but  fail- 
ing, gave  up  in  disgust  and  returned  to  England. 

After  his  departure,  things  went  from  bad  to 
worse.  Within  six  months  vice  and  starvation 


68  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

had  reduced  the  colony  from  five  hundred  to 
sixty  persons,  and  these  must  also  have  perished 
had  not  relief  come  from  Bngland. 

Shortly  afterward  Lord  Delaware  was  sent 
out  to  be  Governor  of  the  colony.  He  brought 
with  him  supplies  and  a  large  number  of  emi- 
grants. Following  these  came  seven  hundred 
more.  The  land,  which  had  hitherto  been  held  in 
common,  was  divided  among  the  colonists,  and  an 
era  of  wise  government  and  contented  prosperity 
began.  In  1613  Pocahontas  married  John  Rolfe, 
and  this  event  improved  greatly  the  relations  be- 
tween the  white  people  and  the  Indians.  But 
three  years  after  it  occurred,  Pocahontas  and  her 
husband  went  to  Burope,  where  the  gentle  little 
woman  died.  She  was  deeply  mourned  by  her 
husband  and  by  her  people,  for  she  was  not  only 
good  but  she  was  beautiful  and  very  clever. 
Powhatan  did  not  long  survive  his  daughter, 
and  thus  were  the  two  best  friends  of  the  white 
men  removed.  The  rapid  increase  of  the  colo- 
nists, and  the  spread  of  their  settlements,  began 
to  alarm  the  Indians,  and  in  1622  a  conspiracy 
was  formed  to  destroy  and  wipe  out  the  invasion 
of  Europeans. 

It  is  necessary  to  mention  one  or  two  events 
in  the  colony  before  this  year.  In  1615  the  cul- 
tivation of  tobacco  was  begun  on  a  large  scale. 
Other  pursuits  were  neglected  and  corn  was 
scarcely  raised  at  all.  The  new  article  of  com- 


"  GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  69 

merce  proved  so  profitable  that  it  became  a 
perfect  mania.  In  1619  the  first  legislative  body 
ever  organized  in  America  met  at  Jamestown, 
where  a  colonial  constitution  was  adopted.  The 
next  year  (1620)  a  Dutch  nian-of-war  sailed  up 
the  James  and  landed  twenty  negroes  who  were 
sold  as  slaves.  The  same  year  a  cargo  of  young 
white  women  were  sent  over  and  sold  as  wives — 
a  position  supposed  to  be  a  little  better  than  that 
of  slaves.  The  price  paid  was  one  hundred  and 
twenty  pounds  of  tobacco  per  wife. 

The  colonists  were  unprepared  for  the  hostili- 
ties wrhich  followed  the  death  of  Powhatan.  His 
dominion  passed  to  his  brother  Opitchapan,  a 
feeble  old  man  feared  by  no  one.  But  there  was 
one  man  who  soon  began  to  incite  the  natives 
to  war.  This  man  was  the  captor  of  Smith, 
Opechancanough.  He  has  been  called  by  some 
the  brother  of  Powhatan,  but  this  opinion  is 
erroneous.  He  came  of  one  of  the  tribes  of  the 
southwest,  probably  Mexico,  and  rose  to  his 
position  of  leader  only  through  his  natural  ability 
to  govern.  Inspired  with  a  hatred  of  the  white 
men,  he  visited  in  person  all  the  tribes  of  the 
confederacy  of  Powhatan  and  roused  them  to 
murderous  fury.  A  few  people  in  the  colony 
scented  danger,  but  the  majority  were  so  secure 
in  the  belief  of  safety  that  it  was  impossible  to 
induce  them  to  take  measures  for  their  own  pro- 
tection. The  settlements  were  now  eighty  in 


70  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

number  and  spread  in  separate  plantations  over 
a  space  of  three  or  four  hundred  miles. 

On  Friday,  the  22d  day  of  March,  1622,  the 
Indians  came  into  the  settlements  as  usual  with 
game  and  fish  and  fruits,  which  they  offered  for 
sale  in  the  market  place.  Suddenly  a  shrill 
signal  cry  rang  out,  and  then  began  a  hideous 
scene  of  blood  and  death.  In  one  morning  three 
hundred  and  forty-nine  settlers  were  massacred. 
It  is  remarkable  that  one  single  white  man 
should  have  escaped,  but  surprised  and  defense- 
less as  they  were,  the  settlers  rallied  and  actually 
succeeded  in  putting  their  assailants  to  flight. 
The  village  of  Jamestown  was  warned  of  its 
danger  by  a  young  Indian  woman,  preparations 
for  defense  were  hurriedly  made,  but  no  assault 
occurred. 

The  wildest  panic  now  seized  the  colonists. 
Distant  plantations  were  abandoned,  and  in  a 
short  time,  instead  of  eighty  settlements,  there 
were  only  six,  and  these  were  huddled  closely 
around  Jamestown.  The  war  with  the  Indians 
kept  up  incessantly.  Opechancanough  pursued 
the  white  men  with  deadly  hatred,  and  the 
white  men  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  murder- 
ing an  Indian. 

In  1624  tne  London  Company  was  dissolved, 
and  Virginia  was  declared  a  royal  government. 
The  colony  retained  the  right  to  a  representative 
assembly  and  of  trial  by  jury.  All  the  succeed- 


"  GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  71 

ing  colonies  claimed  these  rights,  so  that  it  was 
in  Virginia  that  the  foundation  of  American  in- 
dependence was  laid. 

Indian  hostilities  continued — grew  worse,  in 
fact,  as  the  whites  increased  in  number  and  in 
power.  There  was  but  one  end  to  such  an  un- 
equal struggle.  It  came  about  the  year  1643. 
Opechancanough  was  a 'very  old  man — he  had 
lived  a  hundred  years  ;  he  could  no  longer  walk 
alone — his  very  eyelids  had  to  be  lifted  by  the 
fingers  of  an  attendant ;  but  within  his  withered 
frame  the  spirit  of  hatred  and  bitterness  was  as 
full  of  energy  as  ever.  His  power  over  the  con- 
federacy of  Powhatan  was  as  great  as  of  old,  and 
once  again  he  roused  the  savages  to  an  attempt 
at  a  general  massacre. 

Five  hundred  white  men  were  butchered,  but 
Sir  William  Berkeley,  placing  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  large  body  of  troops,  marched  against 
the  Indians  and  not  only  utterly  routed  them, 
but  captured  their  aged  chief  and  took  him  back 
to  Jamestown.  The  confederacy  instantly  dis- 
solved, and  the  white  men's  power  over  the  land 
was  established  more  firmly  than  ever. 

The  second  permanent  settlement  in  the 
United  States — or  what  is  now  the  United 
States — was  made  by  the  Dutch  in  1614.  A 
fort  was  built  on  the  extremity  of  the  island 
on  which  New  York  now  stands ;  another  was 
erected  at  the  site  of.  the  city  of  Albany,  and 


72 


"  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   Of    THEE." 


the  country  between  was  called  New  Nether- 
lands. The  next  year  a  settlement  of  some  im- 
portance was  made  at  Albany,  but  for  many 


THE   FIRST    SETTLEMENT   OF   NEW   YORK. 

years  the  fort  on  Manhattan  Island  was  a  mere 
trading-post. 
The  first  thing  the  Dutch  did  was  to  make 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  73 

treaties  with  the  Indians.  The  Five  Nations 
had  long  been  at  war  with  the  Algonquins  in 
Canada.  The  latter  had  allied  with  the  French, 
who  had  settled  there  some  years  before,  and 
with  their  aid  defeated  the  Iroquois.  It  was  with 
the  hope  of  similar  reinforcement  that  the  Iro- 
quois now  hastened  to  make  friends  with  this 
new  colony  of  white  men.  The  great  treaty  was 
made  in  1618,  on  the  banks  of  Norman's  Kill, 
and  was  witnessed  by  ambassadors  from  every 
tribe  of  the  Five  Nations.  The  pipe  of  peace 
was  smoked  and  the  hatchet  buried,  and  on  the 
spot  where  the  emblem  of  war  was  hidden  the 
Dutch  vowed  to  erect  a  church. 

Thus  was  the  quiet  possession  of  the  country 
and  of  the  Indian  trade  guaranteed  the  inhab- 
itants of  New  Netherlands. 

The  actual  colonization  of  the  place  began  at 
once,  but  it  was  not  until  1625  that  a  governor 
was  appointed.  In  1631  the  Dutch  possessions 
extended  from  Cape  Henlopen  to  Cape  Cod. 
This  claim  was  disputed  by  the  English  settlers 
in  New  England,  who  also  formed  colonies  on 
Long  Island  and  in  Connecticut.  They  en- 
deavored to  trade  with  the  Hudson  River 
Indians,  and  finally,  in  1633,  an  English  ship 
appeared  at  New  Amsterdam.  The  governor, 
old  Wouter  van  Twiller,  ordered  it  to  depart, 
but  the  captain,  one  Jacob  Eelkins,  went  011 
shore,  and,  in  a  friendly  sort  of  a  way,  requested 


74  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

permission  to  ascend  the  river.  He  added, 
casually,  that  while  he  would  be  very  grateful 
for  the  permission,  he  intended  to  proceed 
whether  it  was  granted  or  not.  The  governor's 
answer  was  to  order  the  Prince  of  Orange's  flag 
to  be  run  up  on  the  fort,  and  a  salute  of  three 
guns  to  be  fired  for  Holland.  Whereupon 


NEW  YORK   IN   1644. 

Eelkins  ran  up  the  English  flag,  and  saluted  with 
three  guns  the  King  of  England.  Then  he 
sailed  up  the  river  to  Fort  Orange,  where  he 
set  up  a  lively  trade  with  the  natives.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  a  gradual  usurpation  of 
power. 

Trouble  with  the  Indians  now  began,  which 
lasted  until  1645.  ^n  I^38  the  Swedes  settled  on 
the  Delaware  near  the  site  of  Wilmington,  and 


"  GOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES."  75 

extended  their  possessions  until,  in  1655,  the 
Dutch  attacked  and  conquered  them.  In  1664 
the  King  of  England  granted  his  brother  James 
all  the  country  between  the  Connecticut  and  the 
Delaware.  He  had  not  the  smallest  right  to  do 
so,  for  the  land  belonged  to  the  Dutch  both  by 
right  of  discovery  and  of  settlement.  England 
and  Holland  were  at  peace,  and  the  overthrow  of 
the  Dutch  dominion  in  America  was  an  act  of 
glaring  injustice,  and  it  is  only  surprising  that 
Holland  made  such  feeble  resistance. 

There  is  little  that  is  important  but  much  that 
is  interesting  in  the  history  of  these  Dutch  settle- 
ments. Slavery  had  been  in  existence  since  1628, 
but  it  was  slavery  in  a  comparatively  mild  form. 
It  was  allowed  a  man  to  purchase  his  own  freedom, 
and  a  great  number  of  slaves  did  so.  A  very 
democratic  spirit  reigned  throughout  the  colony. 
The  republican  sentiment  which  they  had 
brought  with  them  from  Holland,  never  left  these 
settlers.  There  was  no  religious  persecution,  no 
intolerance,  no  such  cruel  wrongs  committed 
in  the  name  of  right  as  in  New  England.  They 
were  good,  honest  burghers.  They  built  mills 
and  breweries,  and  raised  fat  cattle  and  grew  fat 
themselves  and  were  very  happy. 

The  first  attempt  to  colonize  New  England 
was  made  by  Gosnold  in  1602,  and  was  unsuc- 
cessful. In  1606  the  Plymouth  company  estab- 
lished a  settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ken- 


76  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

nebec  River,  but  the  forty-five  daring  spirits  of 
which  it  was  composed  abandoned  it  after  a 
winter  of  suffering,  and  returned  to  England. 
Captain  John  Smith  explored  the  coast  in  1614, 
making  a  map  of  its  length  and  giving  it  its 
present  name.  His  earnest  attempts  at  coloni- 
zation failed,  and  it  was  not  until  the  arrival  of 
the  Puritans  in  1620  that  a  permanent  settle- 
ment was  formed. 

These  Puritans,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  ex- 
plain, were  the  most  austere  of  the  English 
"  Non-Conformists,"  or  dissenters  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  Most  of  them  were  Notting- 
hamshire farmers,  and  so  mercilessly  were  they 
persecuted  at  home  on  account  of  their  religion 
that  they  determined  to  emigrate  to  Holland, 
where  a  London  congregation  had  fled  some 
years  before,  and  where  they  in  turn  were  fol- 
lowed by  a  Lincolnshire  congregation.  Holland 
becoming  the  seat  of  violent  political  agitation, 
they  resolved  to  emigrate  to  America.  In  July, 
1620,  they  embarked  for  England  in  the  ship 
"  Speedwell."  At  Southampton  they  met  the 
"  Mayflower,"  which  was  also  engaged  for  the 
voyage.  They  put  to  sea  twice,  but  were  obliged 
to  return,  as  the  "  Speedwell "  proved  unsea- 
worthy.  Finally  the  "  Mayflower  "  sailed  alone 
on  the  6th  of  September.  Their  destination 
was  a  point  near  the  Hudson  River,  just  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  territory  of  the  London 


UGOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  77 

Company.  This  must  have  been  the  sea-coast  of 
the  State  of  New  Jersey. 

At  early  dawn  of  the  9th  of  November,  1620, 
the  white  sand-banks  of  Massachusetts  came 
into  sight ;  their  course  lay  to  the  south,  but  so 
dangerous  became  the  shoals  and  breakers  that 
they  resolved  to  retrace  their  vessel's  way,  and 
two  days  later,  at  noon,  they  dropped  anchor  in 
the  bay  formed  by  the  curved  peninsula  which 
terminates  in  Cape  Cod. 

Here,  while  the  vessel  lay  at  anchor,  a  brief 
governmental  compact  was  drawn  up,  and  John 
Carver,  who  had  been  very  prominent  in  obtain- 
ing the  King's  permission  for  their  enterprise, 
was  chosen  governor  of  the  colony.  In  the  after- 
noon "  fifteen  or  sixteen  men  well  armed  "  were 
sent  on  shore  to  reconnoitre  and  to  collect  fuel. 
They  returned  at  evening  bringing  good  report 
of  the  country,  and  the  welcome  news  that  there 
was  neither  person  nor  dwelling  in  sight.  The 
next  day  was  Sunday,  which  the  emigrants  kept 
as  strictly  as  usual.  Monday  morning,  while 
the  women  washed  and  the  men  began  their 
labors  by  hauling  a  boat  on  shore  for  repairs, 
Miles  Standish  and  sixteen  men  set  off  on  foot 
to  explore  the  country.  They  returned  Friday 
evening  bringing  some  Indian  corn  which  they 
had  found  in  a  deserted  hut.  The  explorations 
were  kept  up  for  several  weeks.  At  last  a  suita- 


78  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

ble  location  was  decided  upon ;  there  was  a 
convenient  harbor,  the  country  was  well  wooded ; 
it  had  clay,  sand,  and  shells  for  bricks  and  mor- 
tar, and  stone  for  chimneys  ;  there  was  plenty  of 
good  water,  and  the  sea  and  beach  contained  a 
plentiful  supply  of  fish  and  fowl.  It  was  on 
Christmas  Day  that  they  landed.  The  record 
says  :  u  Monday,  the  25th  day,  we  went  on  shore, 
some  to  fell  timber,  some  to  saw,  some  to  rive, 
and  some  to  carry ;  so  no  man  rested  all  that 
day."  They  first  erected  a  building  for  common 
occupation.  Nineteen  plots  for  dwelling-houses 
were  laid  out,  and  in  spite  of  the  bitter  cold  the 
little  settlement  gradually  built  itself  into  a  town. 
Sickness  set  in,  and  within  four  months'  time 
one-half  of  their  number  was  swept  away.  It 
was  a  terrible  winter,  but  there  was  no  inclina- 
tion to  weaken  or  to  despond  on  the  part  of  the 
heroic  Pilgrims.  They  were  in  constant  fear  of 
the  Indians,  and  the  necessity  for  defenses  be- 
coming daily  more  apparent,  a  military  organi- 
zation was  formed,  with  the  valiant  Miles 
Standish  as  Captain,  and  the  fortification  on  the 
hill  overlooking  the  dwellings  was  mounted  with 
five  guns. 

"  Warm  and  fair  weather  "  came  at  last ;  and 
never  could  spring  have  seemed  fairer  to  these 
people  than  when  it  greeted  them  first  in  New 
England.  The  colony  at  Plymouth  grew  and 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES."  79 

prospered.  The  Indians  made  several  threats  of 
hostility  but  were  each  time  repressed  by  Miles 
Standish  and  his  men. 

In  1628  another  settlement  was  made  at  Salem, 
under  John  Bndicott.  The  next  year  this  colony 
was  large  enough  to  admit  of  a  lively  quarrel, 
the  consequence  of  which  was  a  division  of  inter- 
ests and  the  establishment  of  Charlestown.  In 
1630  the  "  Colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  "  was 
augmented  by  the  arrival  of  a  large  number  of 
settlers,  many  of  them  being  people  of  education 
and  refinement.  The  towns  of  Boston,  Water- 
town,  Roxbury,  and  Dorchester  were  founded. 
In  August  the  first  Court  of  Assistants  met  since 
the  arrival  of  the  colonists,  and  voted  to  build 
houses  and  to  raise  salaries  for  ministers.  This 
year  was  made  a  bold  step  toward  the  establish- 
ment of  civil  liberty  in  the  removing  of  the 
governing  council  from  England  to  Massachu- 
setts. In  1633  the  settlement  of  Connecticut 
was  begun.  In  another  year  there  were  "  between 
three  and  four  thousand  Englishmen  distributed 
among  twenty  hamlets  along  and  near  the  sea- 
shore." 

It  seems  a  good  deal  of  a  pity  that  these  grand 
old  Pilgrim  Fathers  had  so  little  sense  of  humor, 
else  the  absurdity  of  allowing  no  one  liberty  of 
conscience,  after  they  themselves  had  fled  from 
just  such  a  state  of  affairs,  must  have  dawned 
upon  them.  The  early  history  of  New  England 


80  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

is  one  long  catalogue  of  religious  persecutions. 
To  the  first  of  these  is  due  the  settlement  of 
Rhode  Island.  Later  dissensions  helped  to 
people  Connecticut,  Maine,  and  New  Hamp- 
shire. 

Roger  Williams  was  a  talented  young  Puritan 
preacher  who  had  been  driven  out  of  England 
by  the  intolerance  of  Archbishop  Laud.  Arriv- 
ing in  Boston,  he  found  himself  quite  as  much 
out  of  harmony  with  the  Church  in  that  place 
as  he  had  been  with  the  Church  of  England. 
He  was  subsequently  called  to  a  Salem  pastorate, 
where  his  doctrines  were  very  popular  ;  every- 
where else  in  the  colonies  they  were  regarded  as 
abominable.  No  wonder,  for  the  obnoxious 
parson  declared  boldly  that  it  was  wrong  to  en- 
force an  oath  of  allegiance  to  any  monarch  or 
magistrate,  that  all  religious  sects  had  a  right  to 
claim  equal  protection  from  the  laws,  and  that 
civil  magistrates  had  no  right  to  restrain  the 
consciences  of  men,  or  to  interfere  with  their 
modes  of  worship  or  religious  beliefs.  This 
heretical  doctrine,  if  carried  to  its  logical  con- 
clusion, would  permit  even  Roman  Catholics  and 
Quakers  to  dwell  in  peace !  It  was  decided  to 
send  Williams  to  England,  where  he  would  un- 
doubtedly have  fared  ill,  for  he  had  preached  a 
crusade  against  the  cross  of  St.  George  in  the 
English  standard,  pronouncing  it  a  relic  of 
superstition  and  idolatry,  and  so  inflaming  the 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLiS. 


"GOOD  OLD  COLONY  TIMES."  81 

hearts  of  his  people,  that  Endicott,  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Court  of  Assistants,  publicly 
cut  out  the  cross  from  the  flag  displayed  before 
the  governor's  house.  So  Williams  refused  to 
obey  the  order  to  return  to  England,  and,  leav- 
ing the  colony  with  a  few  of  his  friends,  traveled 
southward,  and  planted  a  settlement  which  he 
named  Providence.  This  was  in  1636.  The 
following  year  his  new  colony  was  reinforced  by 
another  company  of  religious  refugees,  who 
merit  more  than  passing  notice. 

New  England  had  become  the  Mecca  of  all  who 
were  estranged  from  the  Established  Church  at 
home.  Crowds  of  new  settlers  flocked  thither, 
lured  by  the  hope  of  what  they  called  religious 
liberty.  Among  these  were  two  especially  con- 
spicuous figures — Hugh  Peters,  the  enthusiastic 
chaplain  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  and  Henry  Vane, 
son  of  Sir  Henry  Vane,  a  Privy  Counsellor  in 
high  favor  with  the  King.  Vane  was  received 
in  the  colony  with  great  admiration  ;  and  indeed, 
the  religious  zeal  which  induced  him  to  relin- 
quish all  his  prospects  in  England  and  embrace 
poverty  and  exile  for  conscience'  sake  is  to  be 
highly  commended.  His  humility  of  manner 
and  rigidity  in  religious  observances,  as  well  as 
his  business  ability,  caused  him  to  be  elected 
governor  of  the  colony  about  as  soon  as  he 
arrived.  But  practical  duties  occupied  little  of 
his  attention ;  he  was  almost  entirely  taken  up 

6 


82  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

with  theological  subtleties  and  doctrinal  hair- 
splittings. These  were  excited  still  further  by 
a  woman  whose  influence  at  that  time  began  to 
create  great  disturbance  throughout  the  entire 
colony.  It  was  the  custom  in  New  England  for 
the  chief  men  in  the  congregations  to  hold 
weekly  meetings,  in  order  to  repeat  and  discuss 
the  sermon  of  the  previous  Sunday.  From  these 
meetings  women  were  sternly  excluded,  and  one 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  whose  husband  was  a  promi- 
nent man  in  the  colony,  began  to  assemble  in 
her  house  a  number  of  women,  who  held  pious 
exercises  similar  to  those  of  the  men.  At  first 
Mrs.'  Hutchinson  satisfied  herself  with  repeating 
the  sermons  and  teachings  of  the  clergyman,  but 
soon  she  began  to  pick  flaws  in  the  discourses 
and  to  add  opinions  of  her  own.  She  taught  that 
sanctity  of  works  was  no  sign  of  spiritual  safety, 
but  that  God  dwelt  personally  within  all  good 
men,  and  it  was  alone  by  inward  revelations  and 
impressions  that  they  received  the  discoveries  of 
the  divine  will.  It  was  all  very  abstract  and  un- 
healthy, but  so  eloquently  was  it  set  forth  and 
proclaimed  by  the  prophetess  that  she  gained  a 
vast  number  of  proselytes,  not  alone  among  the 
women,  but  the  men  as  well.  Vane  defended 
and  upheld  her  wildest  theories,  and,  following 
his  example,  the  interest  increased.  The  dis- 
sension grew  more  bitter  with  every  conference, 
every  day  of  fasting  and  humiliation  held  by  the 


"GOOD  OLD  COLONY  TIMES."  83 

new  sect.  Finally,  in  1637,  Mrs.  Hutchinson 
was  banished,  and  many  of  her  disciples  with- 
drew voluntarily  and  joined  the  Providence 
population.  Vane  returned  to  England  in  dis- 
gust, and  no  one  lamented  his  departure. 

Roger  Willianis's  colony,  so  largely  increased, 
purchased  from  the  Indians  a  fertile  island  in 
Narragansett  Bay,  to  which  they  gave  the  name 
Rhode  Island.  In  this  community  no  religious 
persecutions  were  allowed.  The  humane  prin- 
ciples of  its  founder  were  firmly  instilled  into 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  Rhode  Island  soon 
became  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  of  all  the 
other  settlements. 

Connecticut  owes  its  origin  to  similar  causes. 
The  rivalship  of  two  pastors  in  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  settlement  resulted  in  the  victory  of 
Mr.  Cotton  over  Mr.  Hooker ;  the  latter,  how- 
ever, was  not  deserted,  by  any  means,  and  when 
he  proposed  establishing  a  colony  of  his  own  at 
a  distance  from  his  rival,  a  goodly  number  of  his 
friends  and  some  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  admirers 
offered  to  accompany  him.  The  west  bank  of 
the  Connecticut  River  was  decided  upon  as  an 
inviting  spot,  and  in  1636  about  a  hundred  men, 
with  their  wives  and  children  and  chattels,  after 
a  terrible  march  through  wildernesses  of  swamp 
and  forest,  arrived  there  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  town. 

Pennsylvania  was  granted,  in   1681,  to  Wil- 


84  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Ham  Penn,  who  had  previously  been  interested 
in  the  settlement  of  Quakers  in  New  Jersey. 
He  soon  after  obtained  a  grant  of  the  present 
State  of  Delaware,  then  called  "  The  Territories." 
In  September,  1682,  he  set  sail  for  his  new  prov- 
ince, with  a  large  number  of  his  co-religionists. 
The  story  of  their  peaceful  settlement  is  familiar 
to  all.  The  code  of  laws  governing  them  had 
for  its  foundation  the  principle  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty.  Penn  returned  to  England  in 
1684,  leaving  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  which  he 
had  founded  and  named,  a  prosperous  town  of 
three  hundred  houses  and  a  population  of  two 
thousand  five  hundred.  These  Quakers,  it  must 
be  said,  had  very  little  in  common  with  the  sect 
which  was  so  persecuted  in  the  New  England 
States.  These  latter  were  really  a  body  of  sepa- 
ratists, called  Ranters,  and  their  excesses  were 
such  as  to  justify  the  horror  and  disgust  of  any 
community. 

The  settlement  of  the  southern  colonies  of  the 
United  States  may  be  dealt  with  briefly.  Georgia 
was  not  settled  until  1732.  The  provinces  of 
North  and  South  Carolina  were  originally  one. 
The  earliest  permanent  settlements  were  made 
by  emigrants  from  Virginia  in  1650.  In  1665 
another  settlement  was  made  by  a  party  of 
planters  from  Barbadoes.  A  Huguenot  colony 
from  France  was  sent  out  by  the  King  of  Eng- 
land. The  city  of  Charlestown  was  founded,  and 


UGOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  85 

was  at  once  made  the  capital  of  the  colony.  The 
most  interesting  feature  attending  the  settlement 
of  the  Carolinas  was  the  "  Grand  Model  Govern- 
ment "  devised  by  John  L,ocke,  the  celebrated 
English  philosopher.  The  object  was  to  make 
the  colony  as  nearly  as  possible  like  the  mon- 
archy of  which  it  was  a  part,  and  to  "  avoid  erect- 
ing a  numerous  democracy."  The  scheme  never 
took  root  in  Carolina.  The  Grand  Nobles,  Pala- 
tines, Caciques,  and  other  exalted  officers  were 
in  absurd  contrast  to  the  rude  cabins  and  pio- 
neer habits  of  living.  For  twenty  years  efforts 
were  made  to  establish  it,  and  the  discord  of 
which  the  contest  was  the  cause  materially  inter- 
fered with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  colony. 

The  State  of  Virginia  was  also  inclined  to  an 
aristocratic  form  of  government ;  its  people 
boasted  themselves  "staunch  advocates  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  partisans  of  the  King." 
When  Charles  I  was  executed,  they  accepted  the 
Commonwealth  without  a  pretense  of  enthu- 
siasm, and  when  Charles  II  came  to  the  throne 
they  welcomed  the  change  with  great  rejoicings. 
Shortly  afterward,  however,  a  royal  governor, 
Sir  William  Berkley,  was  sent  out  to  them,  and 
such  a  tyrant  he  proved  to  be  that  the  people 
became  exasperated.  Commercial  laws  were  in- 
stituted that  bade  fair  to  beggar  the  planters ; 
tobacco,  for  instance,  could  be  sent  to  none  but 
English  ports,  and  it  had  not  only  to  pay  a  large 


86  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

duty  on  reaching  England,  but  it  was  taxed 
heavily  before  leaving.  The  government  took 
no  steps  to  repress  the  Indian  outrages  which 
were  constantly  occurring;  the  Assembly,  in- 
stead of  being  elected  every  two  years,  was  kept 
permanently  in  session,  and  the  country  was 
overrun  with  office-seekers.  The  culmination  of 
these  troubles  was  the  outbreak  known  as  the 
Bacon  Rebellion,  which  commenced  in  1675,  an(^ 
grew  principally  out  of  the  indifference  of  the 
authorities  on  the  Indian  question.  Nothing  de- 
cisive was  gained  by  this  rebellion,  but  it  is 
mentioned  to  show  the  disposition  of  the  people 
against  tyranny. 

The  other  English  colonies  were  instituted 
under  conditions  of  liberality,  and,  in  spite  of 
their  bigotry  and  intolerance,  they  enjoyed  far 
more  religious  and  political  liberty  than  any 
European  country  of  that  day.  The  home  gov- 
ernment took  no  part  in  their  original  formation, 
except  in  the  very  easy  requirements  of  the 
charters  granted  the  proprietors.  Lord  Balti- 
more was  left  at  full  liberty  to  establish  his  own 
form  of  government  in  Maryland,  and  his  pref- 
erence was  extremely  liberal.  William-  Penn 
was  not  interfered  with  in  Pennsylvania.  The 
government  of  Plymouth  was  formed  without 
any  restriction  or  even  suggestion  from  abroad, 
by  a  party  of  self-reliant  men,  who  were  well 
fitted  by  temperament  and  experience  for  self- 


UGOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES."  87 

government.  All  the  New  England  colonies 
gradually  assumed  the  prerogatives  of  govern- 
ment, even  to  the  power  of  capital  punishment. 
In  1643  a  further  step  in  the  evolution  of  a  re- 
public was  made  ;  the  colonies  of  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  New  Haven,  and  Plymouth  united 
under  the  title  of  The  United  Colonies  of  New 
England.  Rhode  Island  was  not  admitted,  be- 
cause she  would  not  consent  to  be  incorporatgd 
with  Plymouth.  Rhode  Island  differed  from  all 
the  colonies,  in  that  there  was  no  religious  re- 
striction to  the  rights  of  citizenship.  New 
Hampshire  was  then  a  part  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony.  The  governing  body  of  the  confederacy 
consisted  of  an  annual  Assembly  of  two  deputies 
from  each  colony — whose  local  government  con- 
tinued as  before.  This  independence  was  scarcely 
interfered  with  by  the  mother  country  until  after 
the  death  of  Cromwell.  With  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  monarchy  came  the  desire  to  restrict 
the  liberties  of  the  colonies,  grown  nourishing 
and  important.  Charles  II  granted  his  brother 
James,  the  Duke  of  York,  the  whole  territory 
from  the  Connecticut  River  to  the  shores  of  the 
Delaware,  and  this  grant  was  followed  by  the 
illegal  seizure  of  New  Amsterdam,  thereafter 
New  York.  The  Duke  of  York  made  Edmund 
Andros  governor  of  the  province,  and  began  a 
series  of  tyrannies,  which  only  increased  with 
the  accession  of  the  Duke  to  the  throne.  Andros 


88          "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

was  now  made  governor  of  all  the  New  Bugland 
provinces,  his  rule  extending  over  New  York. 
On  arriving  in  Boston,  in  1686,  he  immediately 
demanded  a  surrender  of  all  the  charters  of  the 
colonies,  while  edicts  were  issued  annuling  the 
existing  liberties  of  the  people.  Connecticut  re- 
fused to  give  up  its  charter,  and  Andros  marched 
to  Hartford  with  a  body  of  soldiers  to  enforce  the 
order.  This  was  in  1687.  An  entirely  new 
order  of  things  now  began.  The  liberty  of  the. 
press  was  restrained,  and  the  laws  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  clergy  were  suspended.  Magistrates 
only  were  allowed  to  perform  marriage  cere- 
monies. The  people  were  taxed  at  the  governor's 
pleasure,  and,  above  all,  titles  of  the  colonists  to 
their  lands  were  declared  of  no  value.  Indian 
deeds  Sir  Edmund  esteemed  no  better  than  a 
u  scratch  of  a  bear's  claw."  Even  grants  by 
charter  and  declarations  of  preceding  kings  were 
insufficient.  The  owners  were  obliged  to  take 
out  patents  for  their  estates,  and  in  some  cases  a 
fee  of  fifty  pounds  was  demanded.  People  were 
fined  and  imprisoned  in  the  most  arbitrary  way; 
all  town  meetings  were  prohibited,  except  the  one 
in  May ;  no  person  was  permitted  to  leave  the 
country  without  leave  from  the  governor.  De- 
spite his  pains,  however,  petitions  were  sent  to 
England,  but  if  they  were  read  they  were  not 
heeded.  Early  in  1689  came  the  news  of  the 
accession  of  William  of  Orange.  The  people 


"GOOD    OLD   COLONY    TIMES."  89 

immediately  rose  up  against  Andros,  and  forced 
him  to  leave  the  county.  In  New  York  State  a 
similar  uprising  against  their  tyrant,  the  lieu- 
tenant of  Andros,  took  place  at  the  same  time, 
known  as  the  Leisler  Revolt. 

The  people  renewed  their  former  mode  of  gov- 
ernment, without  being  interfered  with,  at  first, 
by  the  new  monarch.  In  1692  a  new  charter  was 
granted  Massachusetts,  which  differed  from  the 
original  one  in  little,  except  that  the  King  re- 
served the  right  to  appoint  a  royal  governor. 

About  this  time  the  influence  of  the  several 
wars  which  had  raged  in  Europe  between  Eng- 
land and  France  began  to  manifest  itself  in  the 
colonies  of  those  countries  in  America.  Invasions 
of  each  other's  territory  became  frequent,  in  which 
the  Indians  took  part,  glad  of  a  chance  to  give 
vent  to  their  savage  instincts  in  murdering  the 
white  men.  King  William's  war  raged  from 
1689  to  1697.  I11  X702  another  war  broke  out 
between  France  and  England,  and  was  marked 
by  much  bloodshed  in  America.  The  Iroquois 
were  neutral  in  this  contest,  thus  preserving 
New  York  from  danger,  the  weight  of  suffering 
falling  upon  New  England.  The  English  inva- 
sion of  Canada  was  begun  in  1710,  when  Port 
Royal  was  captured  and  its  name  changed  to 
Annapolis.  Nova  Scotia — or  Acadia — was  per- 
manently added  to  the  English  possessions.  In 
1713  the  war  ended,  with  the  peace  of  Utrecht, 


90  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

and  in  the  succeeding  thirty  years  of  tranquillity 
the  colonies  gained  rapidly  in  population  and 
importance.  Hostilities  broke  out  again  in  1744, 
and  scarcely  ceased  until  the  close  of  the  French 
and  Indian  war. 

This  war,  unlike  the  others,  had  its  origin  in 
America  and  ended  in  a  decided  change  in  the 
relative  positions  of  the  French  and  English 
colonies.  The  original  basis  of  the  contest  was 
a  dispute  as  to  the  ownership  of  the  territory 
bordering  on  the  Ohio.  The  real  merits  of  the 
case  may  be  summed  up  in  the  pertinent  inquiry 
sent  by  two  of  the  Indian  chieftains  to  inquire 
"  where  the  Indians'  land  lay,  for  the  French 
claimed  all  the  land  on  one  side  of  the  river  and 
the  English  on  the  other."  Neither  of  the 
colonial  contestants  had  the  slightest  right  to 
the  territory. 

The  first  offensive  act  was  committed  by  the 
French,  who  seized  three  British  traders  who  had 
advanced  into  the  disputed  country.  The  Indians, 
aroused  by  these  evident  hostilities,  began  their 
border  ravages,  instigated  by  the  French.  Orders 
now  arrived  from  England  to  the  Governor  of 
Virginia,  directing  him  to  build  two  forts  near 
the  Ohio  to  prevent  French  encroachments  and 
to  check  Indian  depredations.  But  the  order 
came  too  late  ;  the  French  had  already  built  forts 
and  had  taken  possession  of  the  territory.  It 
was  decided  to  send  a  messenger  to  the  com- 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  91 

mander  of  the  French  forces  on  the  Ohio  and 
demand  his  authority  for  invading  the  territory 
of  Virginia.  For  this  mission  was  selected  a 
young  man  of  only  twenty-one  years,  but  who 
was  already  a  Major  in  the  Virginia  militia  and 
a  man  of  note  in  the  colony — the  man  was 
George  Washington.  His  journey  occupied 
forty-one  days  and  was  full  of  exciting  adventure. 
His  consultation  with  the  French  authorities  left 
no  doubt  as  to  their  martial  attitude,  and  Major 
Washington  returned  at  once  to  Virginia,  where 
efforts  were  immediately  begun  to  raise  a  colonial 
army.  The  other  colonies  took  little  interest  in 
the  affair  and  Virginia  had  to  depend  mainly  on 
herself.  As  soon,  however,  as  it  became  apparent 
that  war  with  France  was  inevitable,  the  necessity 
for  co-operation  in  the  colonies  was  demonstrated, 
and  the  English  government  recommended  that 
a  convention  be  held  at  Albany  for  the  purpose 
of  forming  a  league  with  the  Iroquois,  and  also 
of  devising  a  plan  of  general  defense  against  the 
enemy.  The  convention  met  in  June,  1754, 
made  a  treaty  with  the  Six  Nations,  and  consid- 
ered the  subject  of  colonial  union.  A  plan  was 
proposed  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  of  Philadelphia, 
Postmaster-General  of  America,  and  even  then 
regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest  thinkers  in  the 
colonies.  This  plan  was  adopted — by  odd  coin- 
cidence— on  the  4th  of  July.  It  provided  a 
general  government  for  the  American  colonies, 


92  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

presided  over  by  a  governor-general  appointed 
by  the  King,  and  conducted  by  a  council  chosen 
by  the  colonial  legislatures.  The  council  was  to 
have  the  power  to  raise  troops,  declare  war,  make 
peace,  collect  money,  and  pass  all  measures 
necessary  for  public  safety.  The  veto  power 
was  relegated  to  the  governor-general,  and  all 
laws  were  to  be  submitted  for  approval  to  the 
King. 

But  the  plan  was  rejected,  both  by  the  colonial 
Assemblies  and  by  the  King ;  by  the  former 
because  it  gave  too  much  power  to  the  King,  and 
by  the  latter  because  it  gave  too  much  power  to 
the  colonies.  Then  the  British  ministry  took 
the  control  of  the  war  into  its  own  hands  and 
determined  to  send  out  an  army  strong  enough 
to  force  the  French  within  their  rightful  lines. 
It  was  early  in  1755  that  Braddock  was  dis- 
patched from  Ireland  with  two  regiments  of 
infantry  to  co-operate  with  the  Virginia  forces. 
Fighting  began  at  once,  although  no  actual  de- 
claration of  war  between  the  two  countries  was 
made  until  a  full  year  and  a  half  later. 

The  interesting  and  important  events  of  this 
war  must  be  merely  alluded  to ;  the  result  was 
victory  for  the  Hnglish,  the  treaty  of  peace  being 
signed  in  Paris,  February  loth,  1763.  By  its 
terms,  Canada,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Cape  Breton 
were  to  belong  to  England ;  France  relinquished 
all  claim  to  the  territory  east  of  the  Mississippi, 


"  GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES.''  93 

and  was  confirmed  in  her  title  to  the  country 
west ;  Spain  ceded  to  Great  Britain  Florida  and 
all  its  title  to  country  east  of  the  Mississippi 
River.  The  most  important  result  of  the  war 
was  felt  in  the  colonies,  rather  than  in  England. 
It  educated  a  nation  of  soldiers ;  it  taiight  the 
Americans  how  strong  they  really  were,  and  how 
little  they  need  depend  on  Great  Britain  for 
defense.  The  hard  feeling  engendered  by  the 
superiority  assumed  by  the  English  officers  and 
the  enforced  subordination  of  the  Americans  was 
the  beginning  of  a  breach  which  was  destined 
never  to  be  healed.  A  vast  amount  of  debt  is 
always  a  result  of  war.  The  colonies  had  lost 
above  thirty  thousand  men,  and  their  debt 
amounted  to  nearly  four  million  pounds.  Mas- 
sachusetts alone  had  been  reimbursed  by  Parlia- 
ment. England  herself  was  smothered  in  debts 
— she  had  been  through  four  wars  in  seventy 
years — and  her  indebtedness  reached  the  appal- 
ling sum  of  one  hundred  and  forty  million 
pounds.  The  scheme  of  colonial  taxation  to 
provide  a  certain  and  a  regular  revenue  began  to 
be  agitated.  But  the  colonies  already  had  a 
heavy  burden  of  taxation.  They  were  in  no 
mood  to  receive  patiently  any  further  encroach- 
ments on  their  civil  rights.  Many  of  the  old 
laws  of  restriction  on  commerce — the  duties  on 
sugar  and  molasses,  for  example — had  long  been 
openly  evaded.  Until  the  accession  of  George 


94  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Ill  the  authorities  made  no  resistance  to  this 
opposition,  but  in  1761,  when  the  third  George 
came  to  the  throne — that  "  very  obstinate  young 
man,"  as  Charles  Townshend  described  him — 
determined  to  enforce  the  law,  and  "  writs  of 
assistance  " — that  is,  search  .warrants — were 
issued,  by  which  custom-house  officers  were 
empowered  to  search  for  goods  which  had 
avoided  the  payment  of  duty.  The  people  of 
Boston  resented  these  measures  vigorously,  and 
in  spite  of  official  vigilance  smuggling  increased, 
while  the  colonial  trade  with  the  West  Indies 
was  well-nigh  destroyed. 

In  1764  the  sugar  duties  were  reduced,  but  new 
duties  were  imposed  on  articles  hitherto  imported 
free.  At  the  same  time  Lord  Grenville  proposed 
the  stamp  tax.  All  pamphlets,  newspapers, 
almanacs,  all  bonds,  leases,  notes,  insurance 
policies — in  a  word,  all  papers  used  for  legal  pur- 
poses— in  order  to  be  valid,  were  to  be  drawn  up 
on  stamped  paper,  purchasable  only  from  King's 
officers  appointed  for  the  purpose.  The  plan  met 
with  the  entire  approval  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, but  its  enactment  was  deferred  until  the 
next  year,  in  order  that  the  colonies  might  have 
an  opportunity  to  express  their  feelings  on  the 
subject. 

This  deference  to  the  wishes  of  the  Americans 
was  a  mere  blind,  however.  The  preamble  of 
the  bill  openly  avowed  the  intention  of  raising 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY  TIMES."  95 

revenue  from  "  His  Majesty's  dominion  in 
America ;"  the  act  also  gave  increased  power  to 
the  admiralty  courts,  and  provided  more  strin- 
gent means  for  enforcing  the  payment  of  duties. 
The  colonies  received  the  news  of  these  proposed 
enactments  with  indignation.  The  right  of  Par- 
liament to  impose  duties  and  taxes  on  an  unre- 
presented people  was  denied.  In  Boston,  always 
the  seat  of  democratic  sentiment,  the  protest  was 
made  in  no  uncertain  tone.  New  York  also  ex- 
pressed her  feelings  strongly.  Even  Virginia 
was  loud  in  her  disapproval.  Nevertheless,  the 
bill  passed  the  House  of  Commons  five  to  one  ; 
in  the  Lords,  it  met  with  no  opposition  whatever. 

The  next  day  Benjamin  Franklin,  then  in 
L/ondon,  wrote  to  his  friend,  Charles  Thompson : 
"  The  sun  of  liberty  is  set ;  you  must  light  the 
candles  of  industry  and  economy."  "  The  torches 
we  shall  light,"  was  the  reply,  "  shall  be  of  quite 
another  kind." 

Petitions  and  memorials  were  addressed  to  Par- 
liament, the  mild  and  conciliatory  tones  of  which 
but  faintly  reflected  the  ferment  and  excitement 
in  the  colonies.  An  association  sprang  suddenly 
into  existence  under  the  name  of  "  Sons  of 
Liberty,"  whose  special  object  seemed  to  be  the 
intimidation  of  the  stamp  officers.  In  all  the 
colonies  the  officers  were  compelled  or  persuaded 
to  resign,  and  the  stamps  that  arrived  were  either 
left  unpacked  or  were  seized  and  burned.  Reso- 


96  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

lutions  were  passed  to  import  no  more  goods 
from  England  until  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed. 
A  change  in  the  British  ministry  now  took 
place,  and,  in  spite  of  opposition,  the  bill  was  re- 
pealed. Tlns  was  done  on  the  ground  of  expe- 
diency only,  and  it  was  soon  made  evident  that 
little  had  been  gained  to  the  colonies.  The 
Stamp  Act  was  gone,  but  the  Declaratory  Act, 
the  Sugar  Act,  the  Mutiny  Act — requiring  the 


colonists  to  provide  quarters  for  English  troops 
— remained.  The  project  of  taxing  the  Ameri 
can  colonies  was  by  no  means  relinquished. 
Duties  were  imposed  on  paper,  glass,  painters' 
colors,  and  tea.  A  large  number  of  British  offi- 
cers were  stationed  in  Boston  to  enforce  the  pay- 
ment of  these  duties.  Riots  followed,  and 
throughout  the  colonies  the  greatest  indignation 
an«d  excitement  prevailed.  The  British  govern- 


"  GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  97 

ment  tried  vainly  to  induce  the  colonists  to  buy 
their  merchandise,  but,  failing,  made  one  last 
effort  by  effecting  an  arrangement  with  the  Hast 
India  Company,  by  which  a  quantity  of  tea  was 
shipped  to  America,  to  be  sold  at  a  price  less 
than  had  been  charged  before  the  duties  were  im- 
posed. Cargoes  were  sent  to  New  York,  Boston, 
Philadelphia,  and  Charleston,  S.  C.  The  in- 
habitants of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  sent 
them  back  to  England ;  in  Charleston  the  tea 
was  stored  in  cellars,  where  it  finally  perished  ; 
in  Boston  men  disguised  as  Indians  boarded  the 
ships  and  threw  the  tea  overboard. 

The  consequence  of  this  last  rash  action  was 
the  passing  of  the  Port  Bill,  whereby  the  port  of 
Boston  was  declared  closed,  and  the  charter  of 
Massachusetts  altered  materially  to  abridge  the 
liberties  of  the  people.  General  Gage  was  sent 
with  troops  to  occupy  Boston,  which  was  already 
fully  garrisoned  with  English  soldiers. 

In  1774  delegates  from,  eleven  colonies  met  at 
Philadelphia  and  formed  themselves  into  a  Con- 
gress. A  declaration  of  rights  was  agreed  upon, 
and  a  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  measures  resolved 
to  be  necessary  to  the  restoration  of  harmony  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  America.  An  address 
was  prepared  and  forwarded  to  the  King  and  the 
people  of  Great  Britain.  Notwithstanding  these 
open  threats  of  war,  the  coercive  measures  con- 
tinued. The  colonies  were  making  preparation 


98 


"  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE.' 


for  defense,  and  an  outbreak  was  imminent  at 
any  time.  The  occasion  soon  arrived.  A  quan- 
tity of  military  stores  were  housed  at  Concord, 
eighteen  miles  from  Boston,  and  General  Gage 
sent  eight  hundred  British  troops  to  destroy 
them.  At  Lexington  they  met  with  the  first 
protest,  in  the  form  of  seventy  armed  men,  who 
were  ordered  to  disperse.  The  order  not  being 


CARPENTERS'  HALL. 

obeyed,  the  British  fired,  killing  eight  of  the 
colonists  and  dispersing  the  rest.  At  Concord 
another  stand  was  made,  but  the  troops  suc- 
ceeded in  performing  their  commission.  All  the 
country  now  sprang  to  arms.  A  small  army 
appeared  in  the  environs  of  Boston,  further  in- 
creased by  troops  from  Connecticut.  The  forts, 
arsenals,  and  magazines  throughout  the  colonies 


"GOOD  OLD  COLONY  TIMES."  99— 

were  seized  by  the  Americans  ;  Crown  Point  and 
Ticonderoga  were  taken  by  Ethan  Allen,  with 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  raw  New  Hamp- 
shire men,  reinforced  by  Benedict  Arnold  and  a 
small  body  of  Connecticut  militia.  The  battle 
of  Bunker's  Hill  followed. 

The  second  Continental  Congress,  which  met 
in  Philadelphia  May  loth,  1775,  voted  to  raise 
and  equip  an  army  of  twenty  thousand  men, 
and  named  George  Washington  as  Commander- 
in-Chief.  On  the  2d  of  July  General  Wash- 
ington arrived  at  Cambridge,  and  took  command 
of  the  American  forces.  Two  expeditions  against 
the  British  in  Canada  were  organized.  One 
under  General  Montgomery  captured  Montreal, 
took  a  large  number  of  prisoners,  and  secured 
considerable  property.  The  other  under  Bene- 
dict Arnold  marched  through  Maine  and  joined 
Montgomery  before  Quebec.  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut  each  armed 
two  vessels  to  operate  against  the  enemy.  Con- 
gress also  resolved  to  equip  an  armament  of 
thirteen  vessels.  Three  ships  from  L/ondon, 
Glasgow,  and  Liverpool  were  captured,  and  their 
cargoes  of  military  stores  for  the  British  were 
confiscated. 

In  the  autumn  General  Gage  sailed  for  Eng- 
land, and  the  command  of  the  British  army 
devolved  upon  General  Howe.  Parliament  now 
declared  the  colonies  out  of  royal  protection, 


100  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF    THEE." 

and  ail  army  of  seventeen  thousand  mercenaries 
were  employed  to  aid  in  their  subjection.  On 
the  yth  of  June,  1776,  a  motion  was  made  in  Con- 
gress for  declaring  the  colonies  free  and  inde- 
pendent States.  The  motion  was  discussed,  and 
on  the  fourth  of  July  approved,  by  a  nearly 
unanimous  vote. 

The  struggle  had  now  begun  in  earnest. 
Since  his  arrival  at  Cambridge  General  Wash- 
ington had  been  engaged  in  organizing  an  army 
out  of  his  raw  recruits,  and  in  efforts  to  provide 
them  with  ammunition  and  suitable  clothing. 
The  regular  force  of  Americans  in  February 
was  about  fourteen  thousand  men  ;  in  addition 
to  these  about  six  thousand  of  the  Massachusetts 
militia  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  Conimander- 
in-Chief.  With  these  troops  he  succeeded  in  forc- 
ing the  British  to  evacuate  Boston.  This  victory 
was  followed  by  defeat  in  Canada,  the  complete 
British  possession  of  New  York,  and  of  the 
States  of  New  Jersey  and  Rhode  Island. 
In  the  spring  of  1777  a  ship  arrived  from  France 
with  upwards  of  eleven  thousand  stand  of  arms 
and  one  thousand  barrels  of  gunpowder.  The 
army  was  fully  provided  with  arms  and  ammu- 
nition, and  more  confidence  was  felt  in  the 
chances  for  success.  As  the  Continental  army 
gradually  regained  possession  of  New  Jersey 
after  Washington's  victory  of  Trenton,  the  de- 
pleted ranks  began  to  fill  up,  and  the  fortunes  of 


"GOOD   OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  101 

the  United  States  never  again  sank  to  such  a 
low  ebb  as  they  had  after  the  British  invasion  of 
New  York. 

About  this  time  several  French  officers  of  dis- 
tinction entered  the  service  of  the  United  States, 
among  them  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  the  Baron 
St.  Ovary,  and  Count  Pulaski,  the  latter  a  noble 
Pole.  They  were  all  of  the  greatest  service  to 
the  Americans.  The  most  important  addition 
to  our  ranks  was  that  of  the  Baron  Steuben,  who 
had  been  aide-de-camp  to  Frederick  the  Great, 
and  had  served  through  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
After  leaving  the  Prussian  army  he  had  been 
Grand  Marshal  of  the  Court  of  the  Prince  of 
Hohenzollern-Hechingen.  "The  object  of  my 
greatest  ambition,"  he  wrote  Washington,  "  is 
to  deserve  the  title  of  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States  by  fighting  for  the  cause  of  your  liberty." 
He  added  that  after  serving  under  the  King  of 
Prussia,  the  only  man  he  cared  to  fight  under 
now  was  General  Washington.  The  Baron  was 
made  Inspector-General  of  the  army,  and  it  was 
due  to  him  largely  that  the  raw  forces  were 
brought  into  the  discipline  necessary  to  insure 
final  victory.  Under  him  the  army  soon  began 
to  operate  like  a  great  machine. 

The  American  cause  advanced  steadily.  The 
successive  campaigns  of  i777-'78-'79-'8o,  and'Si 
must  be  epitomized.  After  the  British  were 


102  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

driven  out  of  New  Jersey  they  approached 
Philadelphia  by  Chesapeake  Bay.  In  August 
Sir  William  Howe  marched  from  the  head  of  Elk 
River  in  Maryland  toward  the  capital.  The 
armies  met  on  the  nth  of  September  on  the 
Brandywrine  River,  and  the  Americans  were 
defeated.  This  gave  Philadelphia  to  the  British. 
Another  indecisive  engagement  occurred  at  Ger- 
mantown  shortly  afterward.  The  campaign  in 
Pennsylvania  now  ended  and  Washington  retired 
for  winter  quarters  in  Valley  Forge.  Meanwhile 
events  of  importance  were  taking  place  in  the 
North.  General  Burgoyne  with  seven  thousand 
British  and  German  troops  were  defeated  at  Fort 
Schuyler,  at  Bennington,  and  on  the  plains  of 
Saratoga.  Burgoyne's  army  surrendered  with 
nearly  six  thousand  men  and  much  military 
property,  and  again  Ticonderoga  and  the  North 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  Americans.  This  was 
really  the  turning  point  of  the  war. 

France,  which  had  for  over  a  year  kept  up  a 
wavering  policy,  now  entered  into  a  treaty  of 
alliance  with  the  United  States,  in  which  it  was 
agreed  that  if  war  should  break  out  between 
France  and  England  during  the  existence  of  the 
war  in  America,  it  should  be  made  a  common 
cause,  and  that  neither  of  the  contracting  parties 
should  conclude  peace  with  England  without 
obtaining  formal  consent  of  the  other.  They 


"GOOD  OLD   COLONY   TIMES."  103 

further  agreed  not  to  la}7  down  their  arms  until 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  should  be 
assured  by  treat}7. 

On  the  alliance  of  America  with  France  it  was 
resolved  in  England  to  evacuate  Philadelphia 
and  concentrate  the  royal  forces  in  the  harbor  of 
New  York.  The  only  other  important  advance 
made  by  the  enemy  was  on  the  city  of  Savannah, 
which  was  captured,  with  the  shipping  in  the 
river  and  much  ammunition  and  stores.  The 
campaign  of  1779  was  attended  with  no  important 
results.  The  town  of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  was 
taken  by  the  British,  but  not  held  for  any  length 
of  time.  A  battle  was  fought  at  Savannah  in  an 
effort  to  dislodge  the  British  troops  at  that  place, 
which  was  so  disastrous  to  the  Americans  that 
the  militia,  discouraged,  retired  to  their  homes, 
and  the  French  fleet  left  the  country.  No  sooner 
did  Sir  Henry  Clinton  receive  certain  informa- 
tion of  the  departure  of  the  French  allies  than 
he  sent  a  large  expedition  against  South  Caro- 
lina. In  April,  1780,  Charleston  was  sur- 
rounded, and  a  month  later  Fort  Moultrie  sur- 
rendered, thus  completing  the  capture  of  the 
city.  This  year  also  occurred  Benedict  Arnold's 
treachery  and  the  execution  of  the  gallant 
Andre. 

The  military  movements  of  the  year  1781 
were  principally  confined  to  the  South.  The 
British  were  defeated  twice  in  South  Carolina, 


104  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

which  closed  the  war  in  that  State.  In  Virgina, 
at  Yorktown,  the  British  army  under  General 
Cornwallis  surrendered,  which  practically  de- 
cided the  result  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Commissioners  for  negotiating  peace  were  now 
appointed  by  both  nations,  and  on  the  3oth  of 
November,  1782,  they  agreed  on  provisional 
articles,  which  were  \o  be  inserted  in  a  future 
treaty  of  peace,  to  be  concluded  finally  when 
peace  was  established  between  France  and  Bng- 
land.  On  the  nth  of  April,  1783,  Congress 
issued  a  proclamation,  declaring  a  cessation  of 
arms  on  land  and  sea.  The  definite  treaty  of 
peace  was  signed  in  Paris  on  the  3d  of  Septem- 
ber. On  the  25th  of  November  the  British 
troops  left  the  city  of  New  York,  and  on  the 
same  day  the  Americans  took  possession. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  STORY   OF   THE   NATION. 

FOLLOWING  the  exultation  of  victory  came 
a  period  of  uncertainty  and  apprehension. 
Financially  the  country  was  in  a  state  of  utter 
collapse.  The  result  of  the  war  was  a  foreign  debt 
of  eight  millions,  and  a  domestic  debt  of  thirty 
millions  of  dollars.  The  army  was  unpaid  and 
mutinous ;  only  the  tact  and  energy  of  Wash- 
ington prevented  an  outbreak.  The  Articles  of 
Confederation,  ratified  March  ist,  1781,  were  in- 
sufficient to  the  emergencies  which  arose  on 
every  hand.  Congress  could  obtain  no  revenue 
except  by  requisition  from  the  States  ;  it  had  no 
power  to  lay  a  tax  or  to  enforce  payment  from  the 
States.  It  had  no  common  executive,  and  was 
really  less  a  governmental  power  than  a  con- 
sulting body.  A  condition  bordering  on  anarchy 
reigned  throughout  the  States.  The  legislatures 
of  States  having  seaports  taxed  the  people  of 
other  States  for  trading  with  foreign  ports 
through  them.  Some  even  taxed  imports  from 
sister  States,  All  the  States  neglected  the  re- 
quisitions of  Congress,  and  New  Jersey  actually 
refused  payment  altogether.  It  was  becoming 
alarmingly  evident  that  the  central  government 
must  be  strengthened,  and  new  methods  of  ad- 

105 


106  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

ministration  adopted,  or  the  confederacy  would 
go  to  pieces. 

All  the  States  except  Rhode  Island  appointed 
delegates  to  a  general  Convention  to  be  held  in 
Philadelphia  in  May,  1787,  for  the  purpose  of 
"  devising  such  further  provisions  as  may  be 
necessary  to  render  the  Federal  Constitution 
adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union."  The 
members  were  the  wisest  and  most  honorable 
men  in  America.  The  venerable  Franklin,  now 
eighty-one  years  of  age,  George  Washington,  a 
long  list  of  Revolutionary  heroes,  and  eight 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
were  among  the  distinguished  delegates.  The 
Convention  was  occupied  for  nearly  four  months. 
The  proceedings  were  secret ;  the  journal  being 
intrusted  to  the  care  of  Washington,  who  de- 
posited it  in  the  State  Department.  This 
journal  was  afterward  printed.  Notes  of 
several  members  were  published  in  1840,  and 
from  these  we  have  nearly  a  complete  view  of 
the  process  by  which  the  Constitution  was 
formed. 

The  antagonisms  of  the  States  were  many 
and  bitter.  Chief  among  them  was  the  slavery 
question.  So  hot  discussious  on  this  point  be- 
came that  for  a  fortnight  the  Convention  was 
on  the  verge  of  dissolution,  and  even  Wash- 
ington despaired  of  a  favorable  issue  to  the 
proceedings,  and  almost  repented  of  having  had 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   NATION.  107 

anything  to  do  with  the  Convention.  At  this 
time  Franklin  made  his  characteristic  speech 
on  the  wide  diversity  of  opinion,  in  which  he 
said  that  when  a  broad  table  is  to  be  made, 
and  the  edges  of  the  planks  do  not  fit,  the  artisan 
takes  a  little  from  both  and  makes  a  good  joint. 
In  like  manner  here,  both  sides  must  part  with 
some  of  their  demands  in  order  to  join  in  an- ac- 
commodating position.  With  the  agreement  to 
compromise,  the  work  went  more  rapidly,  and  on 
the  1 2th  of  September  the  completed  Constitu- 
tion was  ordered  printed.  The  signing,  and  the 
ratification  by  States  of  the  Constitution  followed. 

The  first  Congress  assembled  in  New  York 
on  the  4th  of  March,  1789.  Delegates  ar- 
rived from  all  the  States  excepting  Rhode  Is- 
land and  North  Carolina.  On  opening  the  votes 
of  the  electors,  it  was  ascertained  that  George 
Washington  was  elected  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  John  Adams,  having  the  next 
highest  number  of  votes,  was  declared  Vice- 
President.  On  the  23d  of  April  the  President- 
elect arrived  in  New  York,  and  on  the  3oth  was 
inaugurated.  After  a  laborious  session  Congress 
adjourned  to  meet  on  the  first  Monday  in  Jan- 
uary. 

The  national  government  was  received  with 
powerful  opposition  by  a  considerable  proportion 
of  voters,  and  two  political  parties  were  thus 
formed  at  the  very  outset.  The  friends  of  the 


108  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

Constitution  were  called  Federalists,  and  the 
opposing  party  were  styled  anti-Federalists.  In 
November  of  this  year  North  Carolina  adopted 
the  Constitution,  and  was  admitted  as  a  State, 
and  Rhode  Island  followed  next  year.  In  1790 
the  location  of  the  Capital  was  decided  upon,, 
and  its  removal  to  the  Potomac  designated  to 
take  place  in  the  year  1800 ;  in  the  meantime, 
the  seat  of  government  was  to  be  established  at 
Philadelphia.  A  census  was  taken,  which  showed 
the  population  of  the  United  States  to  be 
3,929,326,  of  which  695,655  were  slaves.  In 
1791  the  opposition  to  the  Federal  party  grew 
stronger,  when  the  State  debts  were  assumed  by 
Congress,  and  Hamilton  broached  the  scheme  of 
a  National  bank.  Jefferson,  who  had  been  first 
Secretary  of  the  State,  headed  the  opposing 
party,  who  adopted  the  name  of  Republicans, 
and  denounced  the  Hamilton  party  as  Monarch- 
ists, and  declared  against  the  tendency  to  cen- 
tralization of  power.  The  Federal  party  con- 
tinued in  the  majority,  however,  and  Washing- 
ton and  Adams  were  re-elected  in  1792.  In  the 
elections  of  1800  the  Republicans  were  vic- 
torious ;  Jefferson  became  President  and  Aaron 
Burr  Vice-President.  The  two  men  received 
an  equal  number  of  votes,  and  Congress  had  to 
decide  between  them.  For  many  years  the 
"  State  Rights  "  Republican-Democratic  party 
continued  in  power. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION.  109 

The  most  important  event  of  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  the  purchase  of  Lou- 
isiana from  the  French.  This  enormous  terri- 
tory had  been  lost  to  England  after  the  French 
and  Indian  war;  it  embraced  the  whole  Mis- 
sissippi Valley,  and  extended  indefinitely  west- 
ward. In  1762  it  was  transferred  to  Spain, 
although  open  possession  was  not  given  until 
1769.  In  1763  Great  Britain  had  obtained,  by 
treaty,  that  portion  lying  east  of  the  Mississippi. 
In  1783,  of  course,  this  came  into  possession  of 
the  United  States.  All  the  territory  west,  and 
on  the  east  from  the  3ist  parallel  to  the  Gulf, 
remained  in  the  hands  of  Spain.  The  import- 
ance of  having  the  free  use  of  the  river  as  a 
channel  of  transportation  to  the  sea  was  early 
felt.  This  necessity  was  intensified  as  settle- 
ments increased  and  the  Spanish  authorities 
began  to  manifest  a  hostile  policy.  In  1800 
Spain  gave  back  to  France  the  province  of  Lou- 
isiana. It  was  some  time  before  the  transaction 
became  known,  but  the  moment  it  was  made 
public  Jefferson  saw  that  our  troubles  with  France 
were  not  an  end.  The  day  she  took  possession 
the  old  friendship,  long  strained,  would  come  to 
an  end,  and  war  seemed  near,  for  in  1802  came 
the  news  that  an  expedition  was  preparing  to 
cross  to  Louisiana.  Meanwhile  the  navigation 
of  the  river  was  closed  to  American  citizens ; 
all  trade  was  forbidden  them,  and  the  right  of 


110  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

deposit  at  New  Orleans  was  taken  away.  Pro- 
tected by  this  right,  traders  of  Kentucky  and 
Ohio  had  been  accustomed  to  float  tobacco,  flour, 
etc.,  down  the  river  and  store  them  in  ware- 
houses to  await  the  arrival  of  sloops  or  scows  to 
carry  them  to  their  ports.  By  the  treaty  of  1795 
some  convenient  place  must  always  be  open  for 
these  goods-,  and  when  New  Orleans  was  closed 
there  was  no  other  place.  Jefferson's  plan  was 
to  buy  so  much  territory  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
river  as  would  settle  forever  the  question  of  the 
use  of  its  mouth.  Although  vigorously  opposed 
by  the  Federalists  in  Congress,  who  wished  to 
declare  war  against  Spain,  Jefferson's  proposal 
was  acted  upon,  and  James  Monroe  was  sent 
over  to  act  with  the  ministers  to  France  and 
Spain  in  the  matter  of  the  purchase.  Talleyrand 
hindered  the  matter  as  much  as  possible,  and 
Livingston  finally  was  obliged  to  break  over  the 
bonds  of  diplomatic  etiquette  and  address  him- 
self directly  to  the  First  Consul.  Napoleon 
agreed  to  sell,  not  part  but  all ;  the  first  price 
asked  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  million 
francs,  and  the  final  price  agreed  upon  was 
eighty  millions.  Jefferson,  although  only  au- 
thorized to  spend  two  million  dollars,  accepted 
the  treaty,  summoned  Congress,  and  urged  it  to 
perfect  the  purchase.  Fifteen  million  dollars 
seemed  an  enormous  sum  for  the  people  to 
assume  to  pay,  and  the  old  Federalists  fought 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   NATION.  Ill 

the  measure  liotly,  but  in  the  end  the  treaty  was 
ratified  by  Congress.  On  November  loth  the 
act  creating  the  eleven  million  two  Imndred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  stock  called 
for  by  the  first  Convention  was  passed,  and  in 
December,  1803,  the  United  States  took  posses- 
sion of  Louisiana. 

The  immense  territory  thus  acquired  was  an 
unexplored  and  unknown  region  to  the  Ameri- 
cans of  that  day.  Only  such  scraps  of  informa- 
tion as  came  from  hunters  and  trappers,  and  the 
wild  tales  of  the  Indians  had  reached  the  officials. 
And  such  tales  !  There  were  Indians  of  gigantic 
stature ;  a  mountain  of  salt  one  hundred  and 
eighty  miles  in  length,  all  brilliant  white  in  the 
sun,  not  a  tree  on  it,  and  saline  streams  flowing 
from  its  base.  There  were  prairies  too  rich  for 
anything  but  grass,  soil  so  fertile  that  things 
grew  for  the  planting.  In  1 804  a  party  of  ex- 
plorers under  Lewis  and  Clark  was  sent  out  by 
the  government;  they  followed  the  Missouri  to 
its  source,  crossed  the  mountains  to  the  Pacific, 
and  traversed  all  that  region  now  known  as 
Oregon. 

The  commerce  of  America  now  began  to  in- 
crease with  remarkable  rapidity,  and  complica- 
tions arising  with  other  countries  obliged  the 
United  States  to  protect  her  commerce  by  engag- 
ing in  two  wars,  one  with  Tripoli  and  one  with 
England.  France  and  England  were  engaged 


112        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

in  that  mighty  struggle  which  followed  the 
events  of  the  French  Revolution.  Seriously  in 
need  of  men  and  unable  to  buy  them  from  the 
German  Duchies  as  she  had  done  in  her  war 
with  the  colonies,  England  began  that  system 
of  impressment  of  seamen  which  finally  became 
so  intolerable  that  war  was  necessary.  The 
evil  was  one  of  long  standing.  As  far  back  as 
1796  application  was  made  in  London  for  the 
release  of  two  hundred  and  seventy  seamen  thus 
seized  within  a  year.  The  people  of  the  United 
States  were  roused  to  a  state  of  indignation. 
Measures  for  fitting  out  a  suitable  naval  arma- 
ment were  taken,  and  a  policy  of  aggression 
decided  upon. 

The  war  with  Britain,  however,  was  preceded 
by  a  three  years'  war  with  the  piratical  power  of 
Tripoli,  which  with  the  other  Barbary  States  of 
North  Africa,  had  for  many  years  made  the 
Mediterranean  unsafe  for  commerce.  The  weaker 
mercantile  nations  of  Kurope,  after  vainly  en- 
deavoring to  suppress  these  outrages,  had  con- 
sented to  pay  an  annual  tribute  for  the  security 
of  their  vessels.  The  United  States  did  the  same 
for  a  time,  but  having  grown  weary  of  this  course 
declared  war  against  Tripoli.  The  contest 
ended  in  1804,  an(i  resulted  in  the  partial  sup- 
pression of  the  piracies.  It  needed  a  second 
struggle  in  1815  to  induce  Algiers  and  Tunis  to 
give  up  all  claims  to  tribute  from  the  United 


THE  STORY   OF  THE   NATION.  113 

States,  and  this  was  accomplished  under  the 
sanie  talented  commander  who  brought  the  first 
war  to  a  successful  close-1— the  gallant  Commodore 
Decatur. 

The  history  of  the  second  war  with  Great 
Britain  begins,  as  we  have  seen,  as  far  back  as 
1796.  The  aggressive  acts  of  that  power  were 
of  a  nature  that  would  not  be  tolerated  for  a 
single  month  did  they  occur  in  the  present  day. 
An  official  report  made  in  1812  by  the  Secretary 
of  State  declared  that  five  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  American  merchantmen  had  been  taken 
by  England  prior  to  1807,  and  three  hundred 
and  eighty-nine  after  that  period.  The  value  of 
those  vessels  and  cargoes,  estimated  at  the  lowest 
figures,  would  amount  to  nearly  thirty  million 
dollars.  An  abundant  warrant  for  war,  surely ; 
yet  the  declaration  was  carried  in  Congress  by 
an  astonishingly  small  majority.  The  Federal 
party,  opposed  to  all  the  Jeffersoniau  measures, 
fought  with  especial  bitterness — and  with  es- 
pecial justification — the  embargo  which  the  ex- 
ecutive had  declared  and  which  had  really  caused 
severe  distress  to  the  industrial  classes.  The 
depression  continued  throughout  the  war,  and 
the  suffering  experienced  gave  strong  support  to 
the  measures  of  the  so-called  "  Peace  Party,"  who 
threw  every  obstruction  in  the  way  of  its  suc- 
cessful termination.  Altogether  it  was  a  war 
for  which  no  adequate  provision  was  made.  The 


114        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OP  THEE." 

navy  of  the  United  States  was  in  no  condition 
to  cope  with  that  of  England  ;  the  regular  army 
numbered  less  than  seven  thousand  men,  and 
the  other  requisites  of  war  were  as  poorly  pro- 
vided for.  The  time,  however,  was  most  oppor- 
tune. Bngland  was  exhausted  with  her  struggle 
with  France,  which  even  then  was  continuing, 
and  required  most  of  her  attention.  Yet  so 
miserably  was  the  war  managed  that  the  first 
year  was  a  record  of  disaster  to  the  United  States. 
Our  naval  operations  were  successful  from  the 
start,  and  the  striking  series  of  victories  at  sea 
filled  England  with  astonishment  and  dismay. 
These  successes  were  followed  by  similar  ones 
on  the  lakes,  where  two  of  the  most  notable  bat- 
tles of  the  war  were  won.  In  1814  the  British 
took  possession  of  Washington,  burned  the 
Capitol,  the  President's  house,  the  public  offices, 
the  navy  yard  and  arsenal,  and  the  bridge  over 
the  Potomac.  They  were  repulsed  by  the  Ameri- 
cans a  few  days  later  and  forced  to  leave  the 
Chesapeake.  The  British  fleet  then  sailed  south, 
and  in  December  appeared  before  New  Orleans. 
The  gallant  defense  made  by  Jackson  lasted 
nearly  a  month  and  resulted  in  victory  for  the 
United  States.  Before  the  first  gun  was  fired 
the  treaty  of  peace  had  been  signed,  but  word 
did  not  reach  the  combatants  in  the  South  until 
February. 

The  treaty  settled  certain  questions  of  bound- 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  115 

ary,  of  fisheries,  and  provided  the  abolishment 
of  naval  forces  on  the  lakes.  On  the  subject  of 
impressment  it  was  silent,  as  it  could  very  well 
have  been,  since  America  had  amply  proved  her 
ability  to  defend  her  commerce  and  her  citizens 
in  any  future  difficulty. 

The  best  result  of  the  war  was  the  rapid  in- 
crease of  American  manufactories,  caused  by  the 
impossibility,  during  the  blockade,  of  obtaining 
goods  from  abroad.  After  the  blockade  was 
raised  many  of  these  manufactories  were  ruined, 
in  consequence  of  the  sudden  influx  of  foreign 
goods,  but  the  impetus  given  had  been  a  healthy 
one,  and  home  industries  had  received  a  start,  at 
least.  Agricultural  products  greatly  increased 
in  value,  land  and  labor  rose  in  proportion,  and 
the  shipping  interests  of  the  country  grew  more 
prosperous  than  ever.  During  this  period  there 
was  evinced  a  growing  tendency  to  the  division 
of  the  country  into  a  Northern  and  a  Southern 
section.  In  the  one,  free  labor  and  advancing 
commercial  and  manufacturing  interests  created 
one  set  of  conditions,  while  in  the  South,  slave 
labor  and  developing  agricultural  wealth  induced 
quite  another.  With  the  invention  of  the  cotton- 
gin,  in  1791,  cotton  quickly  rose  to  a  prominent 
position  among  American  industries.  Slave 
labor,  which  had  been  growing  undesirable,  now 
became  of  high  value,  and  the  slaves  in  the 
country  increased  from  657,047  in  1790  to — in 


116         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE/' 

round  numbers — 1,600,000  in  1820.  By  this 
time  slavery  had  almost  vanished  from  the 
North,  and  the  industrial  interests  of  the  country 
were  becoming  so  widely  different  that  the  char- 
acter of  the  people  could  not  avoid  suffering  pro- 
portionate changes.  In  the  North  industry  was 
commended  above  all  things,  and  the  worker  was 
the  peer  of  any  man — theoretically  speaking. 
In  the  South  labor  was  looked  down  upon,  and 
the  planter  gave  himself  up  to  social  pleasures, 
even  leaving  the  overseeing  of  his  estate  in  the 
hands  of  an  agent.  While  the  tendency  in  the 
North  was  the  breaking  down  of  all  class  dis- 
tinction, the  South  was  becoming  more  and  more 
of  an  aristocracy.  This  diversity  of  conditions 
was  destined  to  increase  with  time,  until  its  final 
outcome  was  most  inevitably  war  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  those  principles  of  freedom  and 
democracy,  on  which  the  Union  was  founded, 
and  on  which  its  existence  depends. 

During  this  period,  also,  the  West  was  filling 
up  with  remarkable  rapidity.  State  after  State 
was  admitted,  until,  by  1820,  the  original  thir- 
teen were  increased  to  twenty-four.  All  the 
States  east  of  the  Mississippi  were  admitted  by 
this  time,  and  west  of  the  river  were  Missouri 
and  Louisiana.  It  was  a  very  rude  population 
that  filled  the  frontier.  Refugees  from  all  the 
Eastern  States  fled  to  escape  justice,  and  finally 
formed  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants.  For 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  117 

many  years  villainy  reigned  supreme,  but  the 
invading  march  of  civilization  gradually  intro- 
duced a  better  element,  and  the  West  offered  a 
less  attractive  harbor  to  the  unregenerate. 

Allusion  must  be  made  to  the  invasion  of 
Florida  by  General  Jackson  in  1818.  From  1812 
difficulties  had  existed  with  the  Seminole  In- 
dians, while  many  fugitive  slaves  fled  to  the 
northern  part  of  the  State  and  amalgamated  with 
the  savages.  These  negroes  settled  on  the 
Appalachicola  River,  and,  furnished  with  arms 
by  the  British,  defied  the  American  authorities. 
Their  stronghold  was  destroyed  by  General 
Clinch  in  1816,  but  annoyance  from  the  Serni- 
noles  continued.  In  1818  General  Jackson  in- 
vaded Florida,  destroyed  the  Indian  towns,  and 
took  possession  of  the  town  of  Pensacola  and  the 
Spanish  fort  of  St.  Mark's.  The  controversy 
thus  provoked  with  Spain  resulted  in  the  cession 
of  the  whole  of  Florida  to  the  United  States, 
February  22d,  1819. 

The  political  state  of  the  country  from  1816 
to  1820,  during  Monroe's  administration,  was 
peculiar  in  that  only  one  political  party  existed 
— a  condition  of  affairs  never  witnessed  before 
or  since.  This  was  known  as  "the  era  of  good 
feeling."  Industrially,  however,  it  was  an  era 
of  great  depression.  The  prosperity  which  fol- 
lowed the  war  of  1812  had  vanished,  and  the 
natural  revulsion  from  abnormally  high  prices 


1 18  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

had  come.  The  banks  suspended  specie  pay- 
ments and  gold  and  silver  disappeared.  The 
Bank  of  the  United  States  was  in  a  demoralized 
condition,  and  ruin  and  bankruptcy  prevailed 
everywhere.  From  this  distress  it  took  several 
years  for  the  United  States  to  recover.  A  nota- 
ble feature  of  the  time  was  the  consideration  in 
Congress  of  the  problem  of  internal  improve- 
ments. Large  appropriations  were  made  for  a 
canal  route  across  Florida,  for  a  national  road 
from  Cumberland,  Maryland,  to  Ohio,  etc.  The 
greatest  enterprise  was  the  Brie  Canal,  built  by 
the  State  of  New  York  at  a  cost  of  ten  millions 
of  dollars.  Among  other  events  worthy  of 
mention  was  the  founding  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Association  in  1815,  the  formation  of  the  first 
savings  bank  in  Philadelphia,  the  founding  of 
colleges  and  universities  in  almost  every  State 
in  the  Union,  and  the  crossing  of  the  first  ocean 
steamship. 

The  history  of  this  period  must  not  be 
closed  without  allusion  to  the  famous  "  Monroe 
Doctrine."  America  had  long  held  itself 
aloof  from  interference  in  European  affairs,  but 
until  now  she  had  never  asserted  her  determina- 
tion not  to  be  interfered  with.  In  Monroe's 
message  of  1823,  occurs  the  passage  which, 
although  it  never  received  official  sanction  from 
Congress,  immediately  became  a  fixed  and  un- 
alterable part  of  our  national  policy :  that  any 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   NATION.  119 

attempt  to  extend  foreign  systems  of  govern- 
ment to  any  part  of  this  hemisphere  is  declared 
dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety,  and  shall  be 
taken  as  a  manifestation  of  an  unfriendly  dispo- 
sition toward  the  United  States. 

In  1819  occurred  the  exciting  controversy 
known  as  the  "  Missouri  Compromise,"  which 
settled  one  phase  of  the  slavery  question,  and 
paved  the  way  for  its  final  solution.  When 
Missouri  applied  for  admission  as  a  State,  the 
House  of  Representatives  voted  to  make  that 
admission  conditional  on  the  prohibition  of  the 
further  introduction  of  slaves,  and  the  emanci- 
pation of  all  slave  children  born  after  the  ad- 
mission, as  soon  as  they  reached  the  age  of 
twenty-five.  The  Senate,  however,  rejected  this 
condition,  and  Congress  adjourned  without  com- 
ing to  any  final  decision.  All  during  the  next 
session  the  question  was  fought,  until  in  the 
night  between  the  ad  and  3d  of  March,  1820, 
the  State  was  admitted  on  a  compromise. 
Slavery  was  permitted  in  its  territory,  but  for- 
ever interdicted  in  the  territory,  except  Missouri, 
lying  north  of  thirty-six  degrees,  thirty  minutes 
north  latitude.  If  the  latter  had  affected  Mis- 
souri alone  it  would  have  been  comparative^  in- 
significant, but  there  were  two  great  principles 
involved  which  bore  upon  the  welfare  of  the 
entire  nation.  These  were  the  questions  of 
slavery  and  of  State  sovereignty  as  opposed 


120  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

to  United  States  supremacy.  The  result  of  the 
Compromise  was  that  the  country  was  divided 
upon  a  fixed  geographical  basis  into  free  and 
slave  sections.  Each  of  the  two  groups  con- 
solidated more  and  more,  and  the  antagonism 
between  the  North  and  South  inevitably  in- 
creased. 

In  1835  an  event  took  place  which  was  destined 
ultimately  to  be  of  great  interest  to  the  United 
States.  This  was  the  revolution  in  Texas,  then 
a  province  of  Central  America.  A  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  made  on  the  ad  of  March, 
1836  ;  on  March  6th  the  famous  massacre  of  the 
Alamo  occurred,  and  two  weeks  later  the  battle 
of  San  Jacinto,  in  which  the  Mexican  forces 
were  beaten,  and  the  President,  Santa  Anna, 
taken  prisoner.  As  a  condition  to  his  release 
the  Mexican  troops  left  the  country,  and  hos- 
tilities ceased.  The  independence  of  Texas 
was  soon  acknowledged  by  the  United  States  and 
Europe,  and  in  1845,  at  its  own  request,  the  new 
republic  became  a  State  of  the  American  Union. 
Mexico,  which  had  never  acknowledged  the  in- 
dependence of  Texas,  resented  the  action  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  following  year  collisions 
took  place  between  the  two  countries  on  the  Rio 
Grande.  Two  very  deadly  conflicts,  one  at  Palo 
Alto  and  the  other  at  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  could 
only  result  in  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part 
of  our  government.  The  army,  under  General 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  121 

Taylor,  proceeded  at  once  to  Palo  Alto,  where 
the  Mexicans  were  defeated  on  the  8th  of  May. 
In  September  Taylor  took  Monterey.  Another 
array  under  General  Kearney  had  succeeded  in 
occuping  New  Mexico,  and  after  establishing  a 
civil  government,  marched  on  to  California  to 
the  assistance  of  Commodore  Stockton  and 
Captain  Fremont.  The  war  ended  with  victory 
for  the  Americans  in  September  of  the  next 
year.  It  had  been  an  unbroken  series  of  suc- 
cesses for  the  United  States.  The  treaty  of 
peace  was  signed  on  the  2d  of  February,  1848 ; 
under  its  provisions  Upper  California  and  New 
Mexico  were  surrendered  by,  Mexico,  which  in 
turn  was  granted  all  its  conquered  territory, 
with  fifteen  million  dollars. 

The  same  year  that  witnessed  our  accession 
of  California  proved  the  existence  of  gold  in 
great  abundance  throughout  a  vast  region  of 
country,  and  in  a  few  months'  time  thousands 
of  treasure  seekers  were  already  at  work  washing 
fortunes  out  of  the  sands.  The  history  of  the 
"  G6ld  Rush  "  to  California  in  the  autumn  of 
1848  and  all  during  the  next  few  years  is  one 
of  unique  and  most  absorbing  interest.  The 
scenes  to  which  it  gave  rise  are  unparalleled  in 
the  story  of  any  other  country,  unless  we  except 
Australia.  A  short  period  served  to  exhaust  the 
"  placer  "  minings  of  California  and  more  expen- 
sive methods  had  to  be  resorted  to.  The  hydraulic 


122  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

process  was  invented  in  1852  ;  quartz  mining 
also  came  into  vogue.  Rich  silver  deposits  were 
discovered  in  Colorado  and  Nevada,  and  although 
the  era  of  individual  fortune  hunting  was  past, 
an  immense  amount  of  wealth  still  remained  in 
the  rocks  of  the  new  country,  and  emigration 
proceeded  with  unexampled  energy.  Not  only 
was  the  Pacific  Slope  found  rich  in  gold,  but  in 
forests,  and  above  all  in  agricultural  facilities. 
With  all  these  inducements  on  the  coast,  came 
the  discovery  of  the  wealth  in  the  intervening 
prairie  lands,  and  the  great  West  began  to  fill 
up,  until  in  forty-three  years  it  has  become  the 
home  of  the  boldest  and  most  promising  popula- 
tion within  the  United  States'  limits.  State  after 
State  has  been  admitted,  railroads  and  telegraphs 
have  been  built  ^across  the  continent,  and  an 
immense  and  flourishing  domain  has  been  added 
to  the  nation. 

The  next  phase  of  American  history  which,  in 
a  recital  of  only  the  important  events  of  national 
growth,  must  claim  attention,  is  the  development 
of  Abolitionism.  The  slavery  question  was  not 
buried  after  the  passage  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise Bill,  as  its  supporters  had  promised  and 
believed.  The  doctrine  of  abolition  was  first 
openly  advocated  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison  in 
his  newspaper,  The  Liberator,  issued  January 
ist,  1831.  Anti-Slavery  societies  were  formed 
soon  afterward,  but  they  met  with  such  violent 


THE   STORY   OF  THE  NATION.  123 

opposition  in  the  North  that  they  were  forced  to 
cease  their  meetings.  The  political  strength  of 
the  idea  was  not  manifested  until  1844,  when  the 
candidate  of  the  "  Liberty "  party  made  Polk 
President  of  the  United  States.  It  was,  however, 
the  close  of  the  Mexican  War  and  the  subsequent 
large  addition  of  property  that  brought  the 
question  into  prominence  before  Congress.  In 
the  discussion  of  the  treaty  of  Mexico,  David 
Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  proposed  to  add  to  the 
appropriation  bill  the  clause  that  slavery  should 
be  prohibited  in  any  territory  which  might  be 
acquired  as  a  consequence  of  the  war.  Although 
the  "Wilmot  Proviso"  was  rejected,  it  was  re- 
ceived with  warmest  approbation  throughout  the 
North. 

The  Anti-Slavery  faction,  organized  in  1848, 
under  the  name  of  "  the  Free  Soil  Party,"  and 
in  the  ensuing  election  returned  its  candidate, 
Martin  Van  Buren,  to  the  Presidency,  sent 
Salmon  P.  Chase  and  Charles  Sumner  to  the 
Senate,  and  a  large  number  of  its  friends  to  the 
House  of  Representatives.  The  rapid  settle- 
ment of  the  West  added  to  the  complication. 
California  and  Oregon  in  their  territorial  organi- 
zation excluded  slavery,  and  the  former  applied 
for  admission  as  a  State  on  an  Anti-Slavery 
basis.  A  fierce  debate  followed  in  Congress,  the 
Southern  representatives  insisting  on  the  organi- 
zation of  California,  Oregon,  Utah,  and  New 


124  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

Mexico  without  slavery  restrictions.  The  Free 
Soil  party  demanded,  not  only  the  admission  of 
California,  but  the  organization  of  the  other 
territories  with  slavery  absolutely  prohibited. 
The  dispute  ended  in  a  compromise,  proposed  by 
Henry  Clay,  in  which  California  was  admitted 
as  a  free  State,  no  restriction  enforced  in  Utah 
or  New  Mexico,  and  slavery  prohibited  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  and  provisions  made  for  the 
return  of  fugitive  slaves  from  all  Northern  States. 
The  compromise  was  so  agreeable  to  the 
majority  of  the  people  that  for  a  time  the  Anti- 
Slavery  agitation  was  greatly  decreased. 

In  1855  the  Free  Soil  party  was  absorbed  into 
the  Republican  party,  destined  to  attain  such 
power  in  later  days.  It  was  the  clause  relat- 
ing to  fugitive  slaves  which  renewed  the  aboli- 
tion sentiment  in  the  North.  For  years  previous 
to  this  time  escaped  slaves  had  found  plenty  of 
friends  among  the  Northerners  to  help  them  to 
Canada,  and  in  time  the  organization  for  aid  and 
secretion  of  fugitive  blacks  became  more  com- 
plete, and  very  few  slaves  who  succeeded  in 
crossing  the  border  line  were  ever  recovered  by 
their  masters.  Massachusetts  even  passed  a  law 
to  secure  fugitive  slaves  trial  by  jury,  and 
Pennsylvania  passed  a  law  against  kidnapping. 
A  decision  was  finally  made  in  the  Supreme 
Court  which  gave  to  the  owners  of  a  slave  the 
right  to  recapture  him  without  process  of  law, 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION.      125 

but  this  availed  little  against  the  growing  senti- 
ment against  all  slavery.  In  1850  a  Fugitive 
Slave  law  was  passed  which  was  so  unjust  in  its 
measures  that  it  left  little  hindrance  to  the  kid- 
napping of  free  negroes  to  be  held  as  slaves  in 
the  South.  This  law  aroused  the  greatest  indig- 
nation, and  backed  up  the  Abolitionists  with  a 
crowd  of  ardent  sympathizers,  where  previously 
they  had  been  regarded  as  wild  radicals.  In 
December,  1853,  the  Territory  of  Nebraska  was 
proposed  for  organization.  An  amendment  to 
the  bill  was  offered  which  should  abrogate  the 
Missouri  Compromise  and  permit  the  citizens  of 
the  Southern  States  to  take  and  hold  their  slaves 
within  any  of  the  new  Territories  or  States. 
The  bill  was  reported  back  from  the  committee, 
modified  to  propose  the  formation  of  two  terri- 
tories, Kansas  and  Nebraska.  At  the  end  of  a 
contest  lasting  four  months,  the  bill  was  carried, 
with  the  measure  which  had  been  in  existence 
for  thirty-five  years  nullified  and  the  whole  terri- 
tory from  the  Mississippi  River  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains  thrown  open  to  slavery.  In  1857  the 
South  gained  a  new  victory  when  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  declared  unconstitutional  in 
the  highest  tribunal  in  the  land.  The  Abolition 
party  was  now  very  greatly  strengthened  in  the 
North,  and  before  the  slavery  agitation,  all  other 
questions  of  public  policy  were  subordinate.  A 
re-organization  of  parties  became  necessary ; 


126  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

the  Democrats  divided  into  two  sections,  and  the 
Free  Soilers  and  a  section  of  the  Democrats  and 
the  old  Whigs  fused  to  form  the  Republican 
party. 

The  first  hostilities  resulting  in  bloodshed 
appeared  in  Kansas.  An  organized  effort  had 
been  made  by  the  anti-slavery  societies  of  the 
North  to  secure  Kansas  by  colonizing  her  with 
Abolitionists.  Missouri  made  a  corresponding 
effort  to  secure  it  to  slavery,  but  rather  by  vio- 
lence than  colonization.  An  armed  band  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  Missourians  marched  upon  the 
new  town  of  Lawrence  and  ordered  its  settlers  to 
leave  the  territory.  The  settlers  refused,  and 
their  assailants  retired  ;  but  this  battle  of  words 
was  followed  by  a  series  of  more  serious  assaults. 
An  election  for  a  Territorial  legislature  was 
ordered  in  1855.  The  slave-holders  of  Missouri 
and  Arkansas  entered  the  Territory  in  large 
bands,  took  possession  of  the  polls,  and,  driving 
the  actual  settlers  away,  cast  their  votes  for  the 
Pro-Slavery  candidates.  This  fraudulent  opera- 
tion was  ignored  by  Congress,  and  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Pro-Slavery  legislature  were  indorsed. 
But  the  Free  State  settlers  were  too  many  to  be 
dealt  with  thus,  and  in  1859  they  held  another 
convention,  elected  their  candidates,  and  adopted 
a  new  Constitution,  in  which  slavery  was  pro- 
hibited. 

These  violent  methods  of  legislation  were  car- 


THE   STORY   OF  THE   NATION.  127 

ried  to  Congress,  where,  in  1856,  Charles  Sum- 
ner  was  brutally  assaulted  by  Preston  S.  Brooks, 
of  South  Carolina,  after  the  delivery  of  the 
speech  on  "  The  Crime  Against  Kansas  "  by  the 
former.  This  occurrence  added  to  the  bitterness 
of  party  spirit,  and  had  its  share  in  arousing  the 
fanatical  outbreak  of  John  Brown  at  Harper's 
Ferry.  On  the  approach  of  the  elections  of  1860 
the  hot-headed  leaders  of  Southern  politics, 
rather  than  accept  the  moderate  views  of  the 
Northern  section  of  their  party,  chose  to  divide 
their  ranks,  thus  insuring'  the  election  of  a 
Northern  candidate.  When  the  Republicans 
nominated  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  whose 
record  on  the  question  was  embraced  in  one  sen- 
tence of  a  recent  speech,  "  I  believe  this  govern- 
ment cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free,"  the  issue  was  for  the  first  time  clearly 
defined  in  a  political  contest.  For  ten  years  the 
threat  of  secession  had  been  openly  made  in 
Congress,  whenever  any  Pro-Slavery  measure 
was  strongly  opposed,  but  now  it  became  more 
than  a  threat ;  it  was  a  menace.  Lincoln  must 
have  been  elected,  even  if  the  issue  had  been  less 
vital,  and  his  successful  candidacy  was  rather 
desired  than  dreaded  in  the  South.  Secession 
had  been  determined  upon  in,  South  Carolina, 
and  the  "  fire-eaters  "  of  the  South  were  delighted 
at  what  they  deemed  a  direct  provocation. 

In  December,  1860,  South  Carolina  passed  an 


' 


128  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   O£  THEE 

ordinance  of  secession,  and  set  up  an  inde- 
pendent government.  Georgia,  Florida,  Ala- 
bama, Texas,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  fol- 
lowed ;  the  Northern  range  of  slave  States 
waited  until  war  had  actually  broken  out. 

The  Southern  element  still  had  possession  of 
Congress,  and  there  was  no  fear  of  interference 
until  after  Lincoln's  inauguration  ;  the  seizure 
of  the  United  States  forts  and  arsenals  in  the 
seceding  States  was  therefore  accomplished  with- 
out opposition. 

It  was  not  until  April  that  any  decisive  action 
was  taken  by  the  new  administration.  Even 
the  fact  that  a  convention  had  been  held  at 
Montgomery,  Alabama,  a  Constitution  adopted, 
and  a  President  elected  of  the  Confederated  South- 
ern States  had  received  no  active  opposition  ;  but 
when  Fort  Sumter  in  Charleston  Harbor  was 
beleaguered  by  a  Confederate  force,  preparations 
were  made  to  relieve  it  at  once,  thus  deciding 
the  question  of  war.  Early  in  April  a  fleet 
sailed  southward  and  took  possession  of  the  fort. 
As  soon  as  it  became  known  in  Charleston,  hos- 
tilities were  determined  upon  unless  Major 
Anderson,  the  Federal  commander,  at  once 
evacuated  the  fort.  He  refused,  and  on  the  i2th 
day  of  April,  18^1,  at  the  hour  of  five  A.  M.,  the 
first  gun  was  fired  which  announced  the  begin- 
ning of  the  greatest  civil  war  in  history. 

Of  this   war  we  shall  not  attempt  to  give  a 


THE 'STORY  OF  THE  NATION.          129 

detailed  account,  but  shall  merely  pass  in  rapid 
review  over  the  most  important  events,  giving  a 
general  outline  of  the  basis  on  which  it  was 
fought.  The  reduction  of  Fort  Surnter  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  call  from  President  Lincoln  for 
seventy-five  thousand  volunteers,  which  were 
quickly  furnished.  Yet  the  valuable  navy  yard 
at  Norfolk  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Confederates, 
and  the  capture  of  Washington  was  only  averted 
by  a  hasty  movement  of  the  troops.  The  first 
situation  was  a  little  complex ;  there  was  in 
effect  a  double  war — one  in  Virginia  and  the 
country  north  of  it,  the  other  in  the  States  bor- 
dering the  Mississippi  River  on  the  east.  There 
were  minor  fields  of  campaigning  west  of  the 
river,  and  along  the  coast  where  the  blockade 
proved  useful  in  isolating  the  South  from  foreign 
countries. 

The  seceding  States  having  chosen  Jefferson 
Davis  as  President,  made  Richmond,  Virginia, 
their  capital,  and  the  two  capitals — Richmond 
and  Washington — were  the  points  between  which 
the  war  in  Virginia  raged  during  the  entire 
four  years,  and  the  fury  with  which  these  cities 
were  alternately  assailed  and  defended  went  far 
toward  exhausting  the  warring  sections  of  the 
country.  In  the  West  and  along  the  Mississippi 
the  line  of  battle  went  southward,  while  a  cor- 
responding movement  pushed  toward  the  north 
from  the  enemy's  country  along  the  river  until 


130  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

the  two  armies  met  and  thus  gave  the  Mississippi 
to  the  United  States  again.  After  this  achieve- 
ment the  two  fields  of  war  began  to  combine  in 
one,  and  the  Western  army,  marching  into  the 
Atlantic  States,  pushed  on  to  aid  Grant  in  the 
final  struggle. 

The  war  began  in  earnest,  when  General  Mc- 
Dowell with  twenty-eight  thousand  men,  ad- 
vanced against  General  Beauregard,  who  was  en- 
trenced  behind  the  small  stream  of  Bull  Run, 
south  of  Washington.  Both  armies  were  com- 
posed of  undisciplined  men.  The  fighting  was 
severe  on  both  sides,  and  it  was  only  when 
Beauregard  was  reinforced  by  Johnston's  forces 
that  the  tide  of  war  turned  in  favor  of  the 
Southern  army.  The  National  troops  became 
demoralized,  and  the  bulk  of  them  fled  from  the 
field  in  disorder.  This  defeat  greatly  startled 
and  alarmed  the  North.  It  was  seen  that  a 
gigantic  struggle  with  a  most  potent  and 
determined  foe  was  at  hand,  and  preparations 
were  made  to  meet  it.  State  militia  regiments 
were  mustered  into  the  National  army  "  for 
three  years  or  the  war,"  and  General  George  B. 
McClellan  was  put  in  command.  The  remainder 
of  1861  was  spent  in  drilling  and  equipment  of 
troops,  etc.,  with  the  exception  of  a  battle  at 
Ball's  Bluff,  in  which  the  Confederates  were 
again  victorious. 

In  the  spring  of  1862,  General  McClellan  be- 


THE  STOYY  OF  THE  NATION.      131 

gan  active  work.  His  plans  were  most  elabo- 
rately drawn  and  carefully  matured.  It  was  the 
campaign  of  an  engineer,  rather  than  of  a  fight- 
ing soldier.  He  moved  toward  Richmond  with 
the  bulk  of  his  army  by  way  of  the  James 
River  Peninsula,  while  General  McDowell  ad- 
vanced from  Fredericksburg,  and  Banks  and 
Fremont  moved  down  the  Shenandoah  Valley. 
The  last  two  commanders  were  met  and  beaten 
completely  by  General  Thomas  J.  Jackson,  best 
known  as  "  Stonewall."  McDowell  was  held 
back  to  defend  Washington.  So  McClellan  and 
his  army  went  on  alone.  He  wasted  some  time 
in  besieging  Yorktown  ;  and  fought  the  battles 
of  Williamsburg,  May  5th,  and  Seven  Pines 
May  3ist,  the  latter  being  within  six  miles  of 
Richmond.  At  Seven  Pines  the  Confederate 
General,  J.  B.  Johnston,  wras  seriously  wounded, 
and  Robert  B.  Lee  succeeded  him  as  leader  of 
the  Southern  hosts. 

"  Stonewall "  Jackson  having  beaten  Banks 
and  Fremont  in  the  Valley,  now  came  down  and 
joined  Lee,  and  McClellan  was  driven  back  to 
Harrison's  Landing  on  the  James  River.  Dur- 
ing this  retreat,  the  battles  of  Gaines's  Mills, 
Savage  Station,  Glendale,  and  Malvern  Hill 
were  fought,  from  June  25th  to  July  ist,  all 
desperate  and  bloody.  Malvern  Hill  was  a  Titanic 
conflict,  and  in  it  the  National  army  was  vic- 
torious. But  McClellan,  instead  of  following 


132  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

up  his  advantage,  continued  his  retreat.  He 
was  constantly  clamoring  for  reinforcements, 
and  blamed  the  Government  at  Washington  for 
his  inability  to  whip  the  enemy.  On  August 
29th  and  3Oth  the  National  forces  under 
General  Pope  were  vanquished  at  Bull  Run, 
and  soon  after  General  Lee  captured  Harper's 
Ferry,  and  crossed  the  Potomac  into  Maryland. 
McClellan  met  him  on  September  ijih  at  An- 
tietam,  and  defeated  him  in  a  bloody  battle. 
Lee  fell  back,  and  McClellan  did  not  pursue 
him. 

The  President  had  long  been  dissatisfied  with 
the  policy  pursued  by  McClellan,  who  apparently 
was  a  victim  to  over-cautiousness.  General  Burn- 
side  was  therefore  put  in  his  place,  as  Com- 
mander of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He 
proved  as  rash  as  McClellan  had  been  cautious, 
and  the  results  of  his  rashness  were  disastrous. 
On  December  i3th  he  fought  at  Fredericksburg 
a  bloody  but  fruitless  battle  ;  and  soon  thereafter 
he  was  superseded  in  command  by  General 
Joseph  Hooker.  That  commander  was  also  in- 
cautious, and  was  commonly  known  as  "  Fighting 
Joe  "  Hooker,  from  his  supposed  brilliancy  and 
courage  in  battle.  He  led  the  army  against  the 
Confederates  at  Chancellors ville,  May  ist  and 
3d,  1863,  and  was  terribly  beaten.  It  was  one 
of  the  worst  defeats  sustained  by  the  Union  arms 
in  the  whole  war. 


THK   STORY  OF  THE   NATION.  133 

Now  the  Southern  armies,  flushed  with  vic- 
tory, took  the  aggressive  and  invaded  the  North. 
They  swept  across  Maryland  and  entered  Penn- 
sylvania, no  effective  opposition  being  offered. 
Hooker  and  his  army  started  after  them,  but  in 
the  last  week  of  June  Hooker  was  removed  from 
command,  and  General  George  Gordon  Meade 
was  put  in  his  place.  That  wise  and  capable 
leader  hurried  the  Union  army  northward,. and 
on  July  ist  confronted  Lee  at  Gettysburg. 
There,  on  July  ist,  ad,  and  3d,  was  fought  the 
greatest  battle  of  the  war,  and  one  of  the  most 
important  in  human  history.  It  cannot  be  de- 
scribed in  detail  here,  but  it  resulted  in  the  com- 
plete discomfiture  of  the  Confederates,  who 
retreated  with  all  possible  haste  back  to  Vir- 
ginia, and  never  sought  to  invade  the  North 
again.  General  Meade  followed  them,  but  was 
unable  to  overtake  and  capture  them.  During 
the  remainder  of  that  year  Meade  made  two 
attempts  upon  Richmond,  but  without  important 
results.  Thus  matters  stood  in  Virginia  at  the 
beginning  of  1864,  when  a  new  factor  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  before  dwelling  upon  which 
some  events  elsewhere  must  be  recounted. 

Attacks  had  been  made,  up  to  this  time,  upon 
the  Confederates  along  the  coast  by  several  ex- 
peditions. General  T.  W.  Sherman  and  Com- 
modore Du  Pont  had  occupied  Beaufort  in 
November,  1861.  Early  in  1862  General  Burn- 


I 


134        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE," 

side  had  taken  Roanoke  Island  and  Newberne. 
In  the  West,  beyond  the  Mississippi,  there  had 
been  much  fighting,  especially  in  Arkansas,  and 
the  National  arms  had  been  generally  successful. 
On  the  water,  also,  the  National  fleets  were 
supreme.  At  no  time  had  the  Confederates  a 
fleet  able  to  hold  its  own  at  sea.  They  had  a 
number  of  fast  cruisers,  fitted  out  in  England, 
which  roamed  the  ocean  as  freebooters,  preying 
upon  American  commerce.  The  most  notable  of 
these  was  the  "  Alabama,"  which  was  finally  de- 
stroyed off  Cherbourg,  France,  by  the  "  Kearsarge ," 
in  June,  1864.  They  had  also  a  number  of  power- 
ful-rams and  ironclad  gunboats,  for  coast  and  har- 
bor defense.  Most  famous  of  these  was  the  "  Mer- 
rimack,"  which,  in  Hampton  Roads,  destroyed 
the  great  frigates  "Congress"  and  "Cumberland," 
and  bade  fair  to  deal  likewise  with  the  whole 
Union  fleet.  Opportunely,  the  little  ironclad 
*'  Monitor,"  just  built  by  John  Ericsson,  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  gave  battle,  and  vanquished  the 
monster  "  Merrimack."  This  was  one  of  the 
epoch-making  naval  battles  of  the  world.  It  not 
only  saved  the  whole  Union  fleet,  and  perhaps 
many  Northern  seaport  cities  from  destruction. 
At  a  single  stroke  it  revolutionized  naval  archi- 
tecture and  naval  warfare.  The  great  wooden 
frigates  were  instantly  made  things  of  the  past ; 
thenceforth  the  typical  war-ship  was  a  heavily 
armored  iron  and  steel  machine,  carrying  only  a 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  135 

few  guns  in  revolving  turrets,  or  in  heavy  iron 
casemates. 

But  the  greatest  of  the  operations  leading 
down  to  1864  were  in  the  West  Central  States. 
At  the  beginning  of  1862  the  National  com- 
manders set  out  to  regain  possession  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River.  In  January  General  Thomas 
defeated  the  Confederates  at  Mill  Spring.  In 
February  Commodore  Foote  reduced  Fort  Henry, 
on  the  Tennessee  River.  A  few  days  later 
General  U.  S.  Grant,  after  most  severe  fighting, 
captured  Fort  Donelson  and  its  garrison  of 
15,000  Confederate  troops.  This  was  the  first 
really  great  Union  victory,  and  Grant  at  once 
became  a  dominant  figure  in  the  drama  of  civil 
war.  Other  operations  followed,  by  which  the 
Confederates  were  driven  out  of  Kentucky,  and 
largely  out  of  Tennessee.  In  April  General 
Pope  and  Commodore  Foote  captured  Island 
No.  10,  with  7,000  Confederates,  thus  clearing 
the  Mississippi  down  .  to  Memphis.  Early  in 
April  a  great  two  days'  battle  was  fought  at 
Pittsburg  Landing,  on  the  Tennessee  River, 
Generals  Grant  and  W.  T.  Sherman  command- 
ing the  National  army,  and  A.  S.  Johnston  and 
G.  P.  T.  Beauregard  the  Confederates.  On  the 
first  day  the  Confederates  were  successful,  but 
on  the  second  the  National  army  rallied,  re- 
gained its  ground,  and  drove  the  foe  before  it  in 
one  of  the  bloodiest  conflicts  of  the  war.  Gen- 


136  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

eral  A.  S.  Johnston  was  killed — an  irreparable 
loss  to  the  Southern  cause. 

The  Union  armies  now  moved  southward  into 
Alabama  and  Mississippi.  Early  in  1863  they 
gathered  about  Vicksburg,  the  "  Gibraltar  of  the 
South,"  the  only  important  obstacle  to  the  re- 
opening of  the  Mississippi.  Admiral  Porter  co- 
operated with  his  fleet.  A  long  siege,  marked 
by  many  desperate  engagements,  followed, ending 
with  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg,  with  27,000 
men  to  General  Grant.  This  occurred  on  July 
3d,  at  the  very  time  when  Meade  was  putting 
Lee  to  rout  at  Gettysburg.  A  few  days  later 
Poft  Hudson  surrendered  to  General  Banks ; 
Admiral  Farragut,  in  a  naval  conflict  of  surpass- 
ing splendor,  had  already  captured  New  Orleans  ; 
and  thus  the  entire  Mississippi  was  regained  b}' 
the  National  authorities.  Later,  a  great  reverse 
was  suffered.  General  Rosecrans  was  terribly 
beaten  by  the  Confederates  at  Chickamauga,  and 
driven  into  Chattanooga,  where  he  was  besieged. 
This  was  on  September  I9th  and  aoth.  But 
Grant  was  now  free  to  turn  his  attention  thither, 
and  he  quickly  drove  the  Confederates  away 
from  Chattanooga  southward  into  Georgia. 

Thus  we  come  to  the  opening  of  1864.  General 
Grant's  brilliant  successes  in  the  West  led  the 
President  to  call  him  to  the  Kast,  when  he  was 
made  commander  of  all  the  National  armies. 
Sherman  was  left  in  the  West  to  command 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  137 

there,  under  Grant's  direction.  These  two  illus- 
trious commanders  matured  their  plans  together, 
and  simultaneously,  early  in  May,  moved  forward 
on  the  greatest  campaign  of  the  war.  Sherman 
marched  from  Chattanooga  southward,  against 
the  able  Confederate  General  J.  E.  Johnston. 
Desperate  battles  were  fought  at  Kenesaw  Moun- 
tain and  elsewhere,  but  Sherman  was  irresisti- 
ble. In  August  the  war  raged  about  Atlanta, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  September  that  most 
important  city  fell  into  Sherman's  hands.  The 
Confederate  President,  who  hated  Johnston,  had 
foolishly  removed  him  from  command  and  put 
Hood  in  his  place.  The  latter  was  a  brave  and 
gallant  soldier,  but  was  not — as  he  himself  well 
knew — the  equal  of  Johnston  as  a  commander, 
and  this  change  did  the  Confederates  much  harm. 
Despairing  of  checking  Sherman,  Hood  sought 
to  make  a  diversion  by  marching  northward 
into  Tennessee.  He  fought  the  battle  of  Frank- 
lin, where  there  was  some  of  the  most  dreadful 
carnage  of  the  war,  and  besieged  Nashville. 
Sherman  sent  General  Thomas  thither,  and  he 
gave  Hood  battle.  The  slaughter  was  terrific, 
and  at  the  day's  end  Hood's  army  was  all  but 
annihilated.  This  was  on  December  I5th.  Sher- 
man, meantime,  cutting  loose  from  his  base  of 
supplies,  and  severing  all  communications  with 
the  North,  had  set  out  with  60,000  troops  for  his 
famous  "  March  to  the  Sea,"  He  made  his  way 


138  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

almost  unopposed  across  Georgia,  from  Atlanta 
to  Savannah,  capturing  the  latter  city,  with  vast 
stores,  on  December  2ist.  Thence  he  made  his 
way  northward  through  the  Carolinas  to  co- 
operate with  Grant  in  Virginia. 

In  the  meantime  Grant  had  begun  his  cam- 
paign with  the  awful  battles  in  the  Wilderness, 
May  5th  and  6th ;  at  Spottsylvania,  May  8th- 
i8th;  at  North  Anna,  and  at  Cold  Harbor.  The 
losses  on  both  sides  in  these  engagements  were 
terrific.  But  the  National  army  was  readily 
reinforced  by  recruits,  while  the  Confederates 
had  no  more  supplies  to  draw  upon.  Grant 
therefore  determined  to  press  the  fighting,  and 
simply  exhaust  the  enemy.  A  long  struggle 
followed  at  Petersburg,  south  of  Richmond. 
Finding  himself  steadily  losing,  Lee  sought  in 
his  desperation  to  make  a  favorable  diversion  by 
sending  his  Lieutenant  Early  northward,  up  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  into  Maryland,  and  against 
Washington  itself.  At  first  Early  was  success- 
ful, and  almost  captured  Washington.  Then 
Grant  sent  General  Philip  H.  Sheridan  against 
him,  and  in  two  or  three  battles  Early  was  utterly 
routed,  the  final  engagement  being  the  famous 
battle  of  Cedar  Creek,  on  October  iQth. 

The  year  1865  opened  with  the  National  arms 
everywhere  victorious.  The  war  was  now  concen- 
trated in  Southern  Virginia.  The  Confederates 
abandoned  Richmond,  and  Lee  strove  to  make 


THK   STORY    OF   THE   NATION.  139 

his  way  southward,  to  join  J.  E.  Johnston  in 
North  Carolina.  Grant  and  Sheridan  headed  him 
off,  however,  and  he  was  compelled  to  surrender  at 
Appomattox  Court  House,  on  April  9th.  The 
surrender  of  Johnston  to  Sherman  followed  on 
April  26th.  General  Grant  treated  his  prisoners 
with  the  most  marked  generosity,  bidding  them 
keep  their  horses,  which,  he  said,  they  would 
need  for  the  spring  work  on  their  farms.  And 
thus  the  Titanic  conflict  was  practically  ended. 
The  other  engagements  that  should  be  mentioned 
were  the  great  battle  in  Mobile  Bay  in  August, 
1864,  when  Admiral  Farragut  destroyed  the 
Confederate  forts  and  fleet,  and  the  capture  of 
Fort  Fisher  by  General  Terry  in  January,  1865. 
Jefferson  Davis  was  captured  and  held  as  a 
prisoner  for  some  time,  but  was  finally  released 
and  permitted  to  enjoy  a  life  of  liberty  and  pros- 
perity in  the  country  he  had  striven  to  disrupt. 
On  April  1 4th,  1865,  President  Lincoln  was 
murdered  by  a  member  of  a  desperate  band  of 
Confederate  conspirators,  and  the  nation  was 
plunged  into  mourning. 

Constitutional  amendments,  forever  prohibit- 
ing slavery,  and  extending  citizenship  to  the 
negroes,  were  adopted,  the  States  lately  in 
rebellion  were  "  reconstructed,"  and  the  restored 
and  reunited  nation  resumed  the  career  of  pros- 
perity that  had  been  so  rudely  interrupted. 

The  events  since  the  close  of  the  war  must  be 


140  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

only  briefly  alluded  to.  Within  the  space  of 
twenty-seven  years  many  important  occurrences 
have  been  recorded.  The  effect  of  the  great 
struggle  was  on  the  whole  good.  The  two  great 
disturbing  questions  which  from  the  signing  of 
the  Constitution  until  1861  divided  the  country, 
were  now  settled  forever.  Slavery  was  abolished ; 
the  most  bitter  source  of  sectional  dispute. 
The  doctrine  of  State  rights  was  also  laid  at 
rest.  Another  benefit  of  the  conflict  was  the 
national  banking  system.  The  finances  of  the 
country  were  placed  on  a  more  secure  basis  than 
ever  before.  The  period  of  reconstruction  was  a 
painful  one,  of  course,  but  in  the  end  both 
sections  of  the  United  States  found  themselves 
stronger  and  better  than  ever  before.  Andrew 
Johnson,  on  becoming  President,  after  the 
murder  of  Lincoln,  took  measures  of  which 
Congress  disapproved,  and  a  bitter  strife  began 
which  lasted  all  during  the  administration. 
The  President  declared  at  the  outset  that  as  a 
State  could  not  secede,  none  of  the  Southern 
States  had  been  out  of  the  Union  at  all.  This 
doctrine  was  ignored  by  Congress,  which  held 
that  the  seceding  States  were  still  out  of  the 
Union  and  could  only  be  re-admitted  on  such 
terms  as  Congress  should  prescribe.  The  Civil 
Rights  Bill,  which  made  the  negroes  citizens  of 
the  United  States,  was  passed  in  1866,  and  shortly 
afterward  the  fourteenth  Amendment  to  the 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATION.  141 

Constitution  was  adopted.  The  breach  between 
the  President  and  Congress  grew  wider ;  bill 
after  bill  was  passed  over  his  veto,  and  in  1868 
the  House  passed  a  resolution  to  impeach  the 
President  for  "  high,  crimes  and  misdemeanors  " 
in  the  conduct  of  his  office.  The  immediate 
provocation  was  the  removal  of  Secretary  Stan- 
ton,  which  proceeding  was  in  contravention  of 
the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  which  provided  that 
no  removal  from  office  should  be  made  without 
consent  of  the  Senate.  The  impeachment  trial 
continued  until  May,  when  the  final  vote  was 
taken,  and  it  lacked  the  necessary  two-thirds 
majority  to  impeach. 

In  pursuance  of  the  "  Military  Act,"  the  South 
in  1867  was  divided  into  five  districts  and  placed 
under  military  governors.  This  exclusion  of 
the  better  class  of  Southern  citizens  from  civil 
duties  placed  all  power  in  the  hands  of  an 
inferior  class  of  Northern  men  (called  in  the 
South  "  Carpet-baggers  "),  who  had  come  hither 
after  the  war  in  search  of  position.  The  actions 
of  these  men  did  little  to  restore  harmony 
between  the  sections.  The  situation  was  not 
improved  by  the  existence  of  a  body  of  South- 
ern reprobates  who  called  themselves  the  "  Ku 
Klux  Klan,"  and  rode  about  in  disguise,  doing 
acts  of  violence  against  the  negroes  and  all  who 
sympathized  with  them.  This  state  of  affairs 
was  brought  to  a  gradual  change  by  the  accept- 


142  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

ance  of  the  terms  proposed  by  Congress.  In 
1868  a  pardon  was  extended  to  all  who  had 
engaged  in  the  war,  except  those  who  were 
indicted  for  criminal  offenses ;  in  1870  the  last 
of  the  States  accepted  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  amendments,  and  with  their  admission 
to  Congress  the  problem  of  reconstruction  was 
solved  and  the  country  resumed  its  normal  con- 
dition. 

Many  other  questions  have  since  arisen,  but 
until  they  too  are  finally  disposed  of  they  can 
not  properly  take  a  place  in  history.  Among 
these,  the  labor  question,  the  temperance  agita- 
tion, woman  suffrage,  the  tariff,  civil  service 
reform,  railroad  and  land  monopoly,  and  the 
Indian  troubles  are  evidence  enough  that  the 
public  mind  is  not  at  rest.  The  Indian  problem, 
it,  is  hoped,  is  nearing  solution.  It  is  unquestion- 
able that  they  have  been  treated  with  great  in- 
justice  and  it  remains  now  for  the  United  States 
to  pursue  the  educating  and  civilizing  policy 
which  it  was  so  late  in  assuming,  but  which  has 
proved  so  satisfactory  in  its  results. 

In  1868  General  Grant  was  elected  President, 
in  which  office  he  continued  eight  years.  Dur- 
ing his  administration  the  Union  Pacific  Rail- 
road was  completed,  thus  connecting  the  two 
oceans.  The  first  successful  ocean  telegraph 
was  completed  in  1866. 

The  most  disastrous  event  of  the   period  was 


THE  STORY   OF   THE   NATION.  143 

the  Chicago  fire,  which  broke  out  October  8th, 
1871,  and  destroyed  an  area  of  buildings  extend- 
ing over  a  length  of  four  miles.  One  hundred 
thousand  people  were  left  homeless,  and  two 
hundred  people  perished.  Contributions  to  the 
amount  of  seven  million  dollars  poured  in,  and 
almost  without  delay  the  process  of  re-building 
commenced.  In  a  few  years  scarcely  a  trace  of 
the  disaster  remained,  and  so  rapid  was  the  city's 
new  growth,  that  what  in  1871  had  been  a 
ruined  heap  of  ashes,  in  1890  was  found  to  be 
the  second  city  in  the  United  States. 

The  second  term  of  Grant's  Presidency  was 
marked  with  violent  political  agitation.  The 
"  Credit  Mobilier  "  scheme  to  bribe  certain  mem- 
bers of  Congress  in  favor  of  the  Pacific  Railroad 
Company  was  exposed ;  Secretary  Belknap  was 
impeached  by  Congress  for  fraud,  but  was  ac- 
quitted; other  exposures  still  further  shook 
public  confidence. 

The  elections  of  1876  gave  rise  to  great  ex- 
citement, and  much  bitter  partisanship  in  con- 
sequence of  the  closeness  of  the  Presidential 
vote,  and  the  questionable  methods  of  deciding 
upon  the  successful  candidate. 

The  returns  from  Florida,  Louisiana,  and 
South  Carolina  were  disputed,  and  it  finally  be- 
came necessary  to  adopt  a  special  method  of  decid- 
ing the  contest.  A  commission  of  five  members  of 
each  House  of  Congress  and  five  associate 


144  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  decided  in  favor  of 
the  Republican  candidate,  Rutherford  B.  Hayes. 
The  decision  gave  great  offense  to  the  Demo- 
crats, and  the  question  is  one  which  is  still  dis- 
puted. In  this  year  was  held  the  Centennial 
Exhibition.  Previous  to  this  time  a  great 
financial  panic  swept  the  country,  and  carried 
ruin  far  and  wide.  The  grasshopper  plague 
created  much  suffering  and  famine  through  the 
West. 

In  1880  James  A.  Garfield  was  elected  Presi- 
dent, and  Chester  A.  Arthur  Vice-President. 
The  Civil  Service  Reform,  begun  under  Mr. 
Hayes,  was  taken  up  vigorously  by  Garfield, 
and  on  this  issue  the  party  split  into  two  fac- 
tions. Two  leaders  in  the  "  Stalwart  "  section, 
Roscoe  Conkling  and  Thomas  C.  Platt,  resigned 
their  seats  in  the  Senate.  The  excitement  caused 
by  these  events  induced  a  lunatic  office-seeker, 
Charles  J.  Guiteau,  to  a  desperate  deed.  On  the 
2d  of  July,  1 88 1,  he  shot  and  mortally  wounded 
the  President  in  the  railroad  depot  at  Washing- 
ton. After  months  of  suffering,  the  martyred 
President  died,  September  i9th.  The  Civil  Ser- 
vice Reform  agitation  survived  its  defender,  how- 
ever, and  the  sentiment  in  favor  of  his  ideas  has 
grown  enormously,  and  promises  to  become 
stronger. 

In  the  Presidential  election  of  1884  the  long 
continuance  of  Republican  rule  was  broken  by 


INDEl'KNDKNCK    HAM,,    PHILADELPHIA. 


THE   STORY    OF   THH   NATION.  145 

the  seating  of  the  Democratic  candidate,  Grover 
Cleveland,  who  won  an  enviable  record  for  him- 
self during  his  administration,  both  for  integrity 
and  wise  management.  In  1888  he  again  came 
up  for  election,  but  was  defeated  by  Benjamin 
Harrison,  the  Republican  nominee. 

Thus  the  Nation  has  come  down  to  the  present 
day,  in  which  it  stands  supreme  among  the 
powers  of  the  world  in  freedom  and  prosperity 
and  all  the  true  elements  of  greatness.  Upon 
such  a  basis  of  accomplished  facts,  the  patriotic 
seer  must  cast,  if  he  will,  its  future  horoscope. 
10 


CHAPTER  IV. 
WORLD'S  FAIRS. 

DURING  the  past  half  century  a  favorite 
and  effective  method  of  displaying  and 
recording  the  industrial  progress  of  the  world 
has  been  found  in  the  holding  of  World's  Fairs, 
or  Universal  Exhibitions.  Almost  every  im- 
portant capital  of  the  world  has  now  held  one  or 
more  of  these  interesting  displays,  each  in  suc- 
cession striving  to  outdo  its  predecessors  in  ex- 
tent and  magnificence,  until  the  latest  of  them 
truly  present  in  epitome  the  invention,  industry, 
art,  science,  and  general  progress  of  the  entire 
world.  It  was  fitting  that  the  first  of  these 
universal  exhibitions  should  be  held  in  the 
world's  chief  city,  London.  It  was  opened  in 
1851  in  a  huge  building  erected  in  Hyde  Park 
for  the  purpose,  known  as  the  Crystal  Palace. 
This  stupendous  structure  was  composed  chiefly 
of  iron  and  glass  and  had  a  floor  area  of  more 
than  one  million  square  feet.  In  size  and 
originality  of  design  it  was  one  of  the  marvels 
of  the  world.  The  example  quickly  stimulated 
similar  enterprises  in  other  capitals.  Dublin 
and  Paris  soon  followed,  and  almost  simultan- 
eously with  the  exhibition  in  the  Irish  metropo- 

146 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  147 

lis  a  similar  exhibition  was  opened  in  the  capital 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

The  American  Crystal  Palace,  which  was 
opened  in  New  York  in  1853,  was  in  point  of 
size  much  inferior  to  its  prototype  in  London, 
and  altogether  insignificant  when  contrasted 
with  the  stupendous  exhibitions  of  later  years. 
For  its  time,  however,  it  was  proportionately 
equal  to  any  that  has  ever  been  held.  At  that 
time  New  York  City  contained  only  a  little  more 
than  half  a  million  inhabitants,  or  about  one- 
third  of  its  present  population.  The  development 
of  the  United  States  was  still  less  advanced. 
What  was  now  central  Western  States  were  then 
sparsely  settled  frontier  territories.  The  Pacific 
railroads  were  a  dream  of  the  dim  future.  The 
Atlantic  Cable  was  a  vision.  The  telegraph 
itself  was  a  mere  rudiment  of  its  present  devel- 
opment. The  railroad  and  the  steamboat  were 
primitive  affairs.  Even  horse  cars  had  not  come 
into  general  use.  Photography  was  in  its  infancy. 
As  for  the  telephone,  the  electric  light,  and  a 
score  of  other  great  inventions  that  are  now  of 
universal  use,  they  were  not  even  dreamed  of. 
As  the  New  York  Crystal  Palace  of  1853  was  to 
the  Chicago  Exhibition  of  1893,  so  was  America 
and  its  civilization  of  that  time  to  our  country 
of  to-day. 

This  first  universal  exhibition  held  on  Ameri- 
can soil  was  situated  in  what  is  now  known  as 


148  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Bryant  Park,  in  New  York  City.  It  is  now  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  city,  at  Sixth  Avenue  and 
Fortieth  and  Forty-second  Streets.  In  1853  it 
was  well  out  of  town  in  the  suburbs,  and  was 
known  as  Reservoir  Square.  At  that  time  it 
was  surrounded  by  open  fields  and  gardens,  with 
here  and  there  rows  of  pleasant  rural  cottages. 
A  few  of  the  streets  were  paved  in  that  part  of 
the  city,  but  there  was  only  a  faint  indication  of 
what  another  generation  would  see.  The  little 
park  was  four  hundred  and  fifty-five  feet  square, 
and  almost  the  entire  area  was  occupied  by  the 
Crystal  Palace.  The  central  idea  embodied  in 
the  plan  of  the  structure  was  that  of  a  Greek 
cross,  whose  arms  pointed  north,  south,  east,  and 
west.  The  extreme  dimensions  of  the  building, 
from  north  to  south  and  from  east  to  west,  were 
365  feet  -5  inches,  and  the  arms  were  each  149 
feet  5  inches  wide.  The  external  angles  formed 
by  the  arms  of  the  cross  were  filled  up  with  tri- 
angular structures,  one  story  in  height,  thus 
making  the  outline  of  the  ground  plan  an 
octagon.  At  each  of  the  angles  of  the  building 
was  an  octagonal  tower,  76  feet  high,  and 
over  the  central  intersection  of  the  cross  rose 
a  magnificent  dome,  100  feet  in  diameter  and 
123  feet  high.  The  external  walls  of  the 
building  were  composed  almost  exclusively 
of  cast-iron  and  glass.  The  floors  were  of  wood, 
and  the  roof  was  of  wood,  covered  with  tin  and 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  149 

supported  on  wrought-iron  framework.  The 
roof  was  supported  by  190  cast-iron  columns 
on  the  ground  floor,  each  8  inches  in  diameter 
and  21  feet  high.  They  divided  the  interior 
into  two  avenues  or  naves,  each  41  feet  5 
inches  wide,  with  aisles,  54  feet  wide,  on  each 
side.  These  naves,  at  their  intersection,  left 
an  octagonal  space  100  feet  in  diameter.  The 
aisles  were  covered  with  galleries,  while  the 
naves  were  open  to  the  roof  and  were  spanned 
by  semicircular  arches  of  cast-iron.  The  dome 
was  supported  by  twenty-four  columns,  each  62 
feet  high,  connected  at  the  top  by  wrought- 
iron  trusses.  On  the  top  of  these  was  a  cast- 
iron  bed-plate,  with  cast-iron  shoes  for  the  ribs 
of  the  dome,  which  were. thirty-two  in  number. 
These  ribs  were  bolted  at  the  top  to  a  horizontal 
ring  of  wrought  and  cast  iron,  20  feet  in 
diameter,  surmounted  by  a  lantern  with  thirty- 
two  ornamental  windows,  decorated  with  the 
Arms  of  the  Union  and  the  several  States.  The 
whole  quantity  of  iron  employed  in  the  con- 
struction amounted  to  1,800  tons,  of  which  300 
tons  were  wrought  and  1,500  tons  cast.  The 
quantity  of  glass  was  15,000  panes,  or  55,000 
square  feet.  The  quantity  of  wood  used 
amounted  to  750,000  feet  board  measure.  The 
principal  dimensions  of  the  building  were  as 
follows :  From  main  floor  to  gallery  floor,  24 
feet ;  from  main  floor  to  ridge  of  nave,  67  feet  4 


150  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

inches ;  from  main  floor  to  summit  of  dome,  123 
feet  6  inches;  area  of  main  floor,  157,195  square 
feet;  area  of  gallery  floor,  92,496  square  feet; 
total  area  of  floor  space,  249,691  square  feet,  or 
about  s^  acres. 

\*s  /  T 

The  total  amount  of  space  on  the  floor  occu- 
pied by  different  countries  for  exhibition,  ex- 
clusive of  the  naves,  was  about  152,000  square 
feet,  divided  as  follows :  The  United  States, 
54,530;  Great  Britain,  17,651;  Switzerland, 
4,428  ;  the  German  Zollverein,  12,249  ;  Holland 
and  Belgium,  3,645  ;  Austria,  2,187  ;  Denmark, 
Sweden,  and  Norway,  4,231;  Russia,  729 ;  the 
West  Indies,  1,093  >  British  Colonies,  5,798. 
The  total  number  of  exhibitors  was  4,383.  Of 
these  1,778  were  from  the  United  States;  677 
from  England  ;  116  from  Switzerland;  813  from 
the  German  Zollverein ;  155  from  Holland  and 
Belgium  ;  and  100  from  Austria.  The  exhibits 
were  divided  in  3 1  general  classes  as  follows : 
Class  I  ,  Minerals,  Mining,  and  Metallurgy, 
Geological  and  Mining  Sections  and  Plans. 
Class  II,  Chemical  and  Pharmaceutical  Pro- 
ducts and  Processes.  Class  III,  Substances 
Employed  as  Food.  Class  IV,  Vegetable  and 
Animal  Substance  Employed  in  Manufactures. 
Class  V,  Machines  for  Direct  Use.  Class  VI, 
Machinery  and  Tools  for  Manufacturing.  Class 
VII,  Civil  Engineering,  Architectural,  and 
Building  Contrivances.  Class  VIII,  Naval 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  151 

Architecture,  Military  Engineering,  Armor 
and  Accoutrements.  Class  IX,  Agricultural, 
Horticultural,  and  Dairy  Implements.  Class 
X,  Philosophical  Implements  and  Products 
Resulting  from  their  Use.  Class  XI,  Manu- 
factures of  Cotton.  Class  XII,  Manufactures 
of  Wool.  Class  XIII,  Manufactures  of  Silk 
and  Velvet.  Class  XIV,  Manufactures  of  Flax 
and  Hemp.  Class  XV,  Mixed  Fabrics.  Class 
XVI,  Leather,  Furs,  Hair,  and  their  Manu- 
factures. Class  XVII,  Paper,  Stationery,  Types, 
Printing,  and  Book-binding.  Class  XVIII, 
Dyed  and  Printed  Fabrics.  Class  XIX, 
Tapestry,  Carpets,  Floor-cloths,  Lace,  Em- 
broideries, Trimmings,  and  Fancy  Needle- 
work. Class  XX,  Wearing  Apparel.  Class 
XXI,  Cutlery  and  Edge  Tools.  Class  XXII, 
Iron,  Brass,  Pewter,  and  General  Hardware. 
Class  XXIII,  Works  in  Precious  Metals  and 
their  Imitations.  Class  XXIV,  Glass  Manu- 
factures. Class  XXV,  Porcelain  and  other 
Ceramic  Manufactures.  Class  XXVI,  Deco- 
rated Furniture  and  Upholstery.  Class  XXVII, 
Manufactures  in  Slate  and  other  Ornamental 
Stones.  Class  XXVIII,  Manufactures  from 
Animal  and  Vegetable  Substances  not  Woven 
or  Felted.  Class  XXIX,- Miscellaneous  Manu- 
factures, Perfumery,  and  Toys.  Class  XXX, 
Musical  Instruments.  Class  XXXI,  Fine  Arts. 
The  plan  of  the  building  was  designed  by 


152  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Messrs.  Carstensen  &  Gildemeister,  and  was 
selected  in  preference  to  other  plans  submitted 
by  Sir  Joseph  Paxton,  the  builder  of  the  Lon- 
don Crystal  Palace.  C.  B.  Detmold  was 
the  superintending  architect  and  engineer, 
Horatio  Allen  the  consulting  engineer,  and 
Edward  Hurry  the  consulting  architect.  The 
municipal  authorities  of  New  York  on  January 
3d,  1852,  granted  a  lease  of  Reservoir  Square 
for  five  years,  thus  furnishing  the  site  for  the 
building.  The  New  York  Legislature  on  March 
nth,  1852,  granted  a  charter  to  the  Association 
for  the  Industry  of  All  Nations,  and  on  March 
1 7th  the  Board  of  Directors  met  and  organized 
with  Theodore  Sedgwick  as  President,  and 
William  Whetten  as  Secretary.  The  United 
States  Government  gave  countenance  and  aid  to 
the  institution  by  permitting  the  introduction  of 
foreign  goods  for  exhibition  free  of  duty. 
Daniel  Webster,  then  Secretary  of  State,  se- 
cured the  aid  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  at  the  chief  Courts  of  Europe, 
and  the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Powers  residing  in 
the  United  States  sympathized  warmly  with  the 
Association,  and  commended  it  favorably  to 
their  respective  governments.  Under  such 
auspices,  and  with  such  encouragement  the 
work  went  forward.  The  first  column  was  put 
in  place  with  appropriate  ceremonies  on  October 
3oth,  1852  ;  the  building  was  open  to  the  public 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  153 

on  July  i5th,  1853,  though  still  incomplete ; 
and  on  Friday  evening,  August  2Oth,  1853,  the 
full  opening  was  effected. 

Perhaps  no  more  interesting  view  of  this  nota- 
ble institution  and  the  chief  events  connected  with 
it  can  be  given  than  that  which  was  presented 
by  the  principal  metropolitan  newspapers  of  the 
day.  Let  us  first  quote  from  an  account  of  the 
raising  of  the  first  column  : 

"  The  erection  of  the  first  column  of  the 
Crystal  Palace  took  place  on  Reservoir  Square 
at  noon  on  Saturday.  The  interest  in  and  im- 
portance of  the  occasion  attracted  a  large  con- 
course of  citizens.  There  must  have  been  at 
least  two  thousand  persons  present." 

Volumes  could  not  tell  more.  Two  thousand 
persons  present  on  such  an  occasion,  and  they 
called  it  a  "  large  concourse !"  Nevertheless, 
continued  the  scribe,  '  There  was  a  large 
number  of  distinguished  citizens  upon  the 
platform  beside  the  pillar.  Among  those  present 
we  noticed  his  Excellency  Gov.  Hunt,  his  Honor 
the  Mayor,  Archbishop  Hughes,  Felix  Forreste, 
General  Tallmadge,  Henry  Meigs,  C.  Crolius, 
ex-Senator  J.  A.  Bunting,  Rev.  Dr.  Peet, 
Lambert  Suydam,  Hon.  Judge  Betts,  Senators 
McMurray  and  Beekman,  and  several  other 
invited  guests.  General  Tallmadge  and  others 
were  present  as  a  deputation  from  the  American 


154  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Institute.  Dodworth's  band  was  present  during 
the  proceedings  and  played  delightfully.  When 
the  pillar  was  raised,  by  means  of  a  derrick,  the 
Gpvernor  directed  it  to  its  place,  amid  the  en- 
thusiastic cheering  of  those  present  and  the 
firing  of  cannon,  the  band,  the  while,  playing  a 
national  air." 

The  chief  address  was  made  by  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  the  President  of  the  Association,  and 
his  remarks  are  worth  repeating  here,  as  ex- 
pressive of  the  sentiments  that  inspired  him  and 
his  associates  in  the  enterprise : 

"  GOVERNOR  HUNT  :  In  the  name  of  the 
Directors  of  the  Association,  I  thank  you 
cordially  and  res-pectfully  for  the  trouble  which 
you  have  taken  to  honor  this  occasion  with  your 
presence.  Our  thanks  are  also  eminently  due 
to  the  city  government,  not  only  for  their  atten- 
dance here  to-day,  but  more  for  the  sagacious 
foresight  with  which  they  have  extended  their 
liberal  aid  to  the  enterprise  in  its  infancy.  We 
are  also  proud  to  see  among  our  friends  the 
officers  of  two  societies — one  from  our  own,  and 
one  from  a  sister  State — which  have  done  so 
much  to  raise  the  aims  and  promote  the  interests 
of  American  industry,  to  open  the  path  in 
which  we  are  now  treading.  The  general  objects 
to  which  this  building  will  be  destined  are  so 
familiar  to  us  all  that  I  need  not  dwell  upon 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  155 

them.  Our  arrangements  are  so  far  advanced 
that  we  can  speak  with  confidence  as  to  our 
ultimate  success.  It  is  sure  to  strike  the 
mind  of  the  European  producer,  that  he  has 
substantial  objects  to  attain  by  sending  speci- 
mens of  his  skill  here,  which  no  European 
country  can  afford.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
American  manufacturer,  who  has  comparatively 
little  but  honor  to  gain  by  sending  the  produce 
of  his  skill  to  Europe,  has  a  clear  and  distinct 
inducement  to  exhibit  his  goods  here.  If  no 
unforseen  event  occurs,  we  shall  have  it  in  our 
power  to  make  such  an  exhibition  of  the  costly, 
artistic,  and  luxurious  products  of  the  Old  World 
as  has  never  yet  been  seen  among  us.  These 
considerations  will  produce  their  results  ;  and  we 
are  equally  confident  that  the  industry  of  our 
country,  with  that  fearless  energy  which,  per- 
haps, more  than  any  other  one  thing  is  a  distin- 
guishing trait  in  our  national  character,  will 
eagerly  enter  into  a  contest  from  which,  in  every 
respect,  nothing  but  good  can  flow.  I  shall  say 
on  this  head  no  more.  Those  whose  eyes,  like 
mine,  were  delighted  by  the  surpassing  glories 
of  the  London  Exhibition — who  know  the 
power,  opulence,  and  varied  resources  of  the 
Old  World — who  know  what  those  creatures  of 
genius,  the  French,  are  trying  to  effect,  may 
well  pause  before  they  make  vaunts  for  the 
future.  Suffice  it,  we  shall  do  everything  that 


156  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

industry  and  fidelity  can  accomplish.  Nor  shall 
I  enlarge  on  the  benefits  of  an  exhibition  of  this 
kind.  There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  there 
yet  exists  no  similar  means  for  extending  the 
circle  of  knowledge  and  taste  —  above  all,  for 
enlarging  and  increasing  that  mutual  good-will 
and  confidence  which  is  the  surest  bulwark  of 
national  independence,  and  the  only  guaranty 
of  international  peace. 

"  Sir,  at  this  moment,  everything  from  the 
pen  of  that  great  statesman,  whose  loss  we 
lament,  will  be  received  with  interest.  I  shall, 
therefore,  trespass  on  you  by  reading  the  follow- 
ing letter  which  I  received  from  him  : 


"  ' 


"  '  DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE,     ) 
WASHINGTON,  Oct.  i2th,  1852.  j 


1  SIR  :  I  have  received  your  favor  of  Oct.  yth, 
and  I  have  examined  with  care  the  papers  ac- 
companying it,  as  well  as  the  sketch  of  the 
building  which  you  have  been  good  enough  to 
send  ;  the  latter  appears  to  me  very  beautiful. 
Your  name  and  that  of  the  gentlemen  asso- 
ciated with  you,  are  sufficient  guarantees  that 
the  enterprise  will  be  conducted  with  energy, 
fidelity,  and  capacity  ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  an  exhibition  of  the  kind  you  contemplate, 
if  properly  carried  out,  will  be  of  very  general 
interest  and  utility.  You  do  not  overrate  my 
desire  to  promote  your  views.  Of  course  I 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  157 

cannot,  as  a  member  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  give  you  any  other  aid  than 
you  have  already  received  from  the  Cus- 
toms Department,  by  making  your  building 
a  bonded  warehouse ;  but  I  will  write  to  the 
representatives  of  the  United  States  at  the  prin- 
cipal Courts  of  Europe,  stating  to  them  strongly 
my  sense  of  the  importance  of  your  enterprise, 
and  the  numerous  reasons  in  my  mind  why  they 
should  give  your  agent,  Mr.  Buscheck,  all  the 
aid  and  support  that  they  properly  can.  I  am, 
sir,  with  great  respect,  your  ob't  serv't, 

" (  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 
"  l  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Esq.,  New  York.' 

"  Permit  me,  sir,  to  say  a  word  respecting  the 
building  itself.  We  intend^-and  I  believe  it  is 
not  too  much  to  claim — that  the  Palace  itself 
shall  make  an  epoch  in  the  architecture  of  our 
city.  We  believe  that  it  will  give  an  impulse  to 
construction  in  the  material  of  iron  that  will  be 
of  the  greatest  service  to  that  interest.  Iron 
constructions  have  already  been  carried  far  for- 
ward by  a  most  intelligent  and  accomplished 
mechanic — -Mr.  James  Bogardus— and  I  believe 
that  the  experience  of  this  building  will  give  it 
a  great  additional  impulse.  Its  superior  light- 
ness, durability,  cheapness,  and  facility  of  con- 
struction give  it  immense  advantages  over  any 
other  material.  We  are  erecting  an  edifice  that 


158  "  MY  COUNTRY,  >TIS   OF   THEE." 

will  cover,  on  the  ground  floor,  two  and  a  half 
acres,  and  it  will  be  done  in  the  winter,  in  about 
six  months,  for  a  sum  not  much  varying  from 
$200,000.  If  any  one  compares  this  time  and 
the  time  with  what  would  be  required  for  a 
building  of  any  other  material,  except  wood,  the 
immense  superiority  of  iron  is  most  perceptible. 
But  there  are,  sir,  ulterior  considerations  which 
I  wish  clearly  to  state.  The  large  cities  of  the 
elder  world,  especially  on  the  Continent,  possess 
great  galleries  for  popular  instruction  and 
entertainment.  It  is,  at  first  sight,  remarkable, 
though,  in  fact,  easily  intelligible,  that  in  a 
country  reposing  entirely  on  popular  power, 
comparatively  nothing  is  done  on  a  great  public 
scale  for  the  pleasure  and  instruction  of  our 
adult  people.  We  have  no  galleries,  no  parks. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  say  anything  in  favor  of 
a  park,  though  an  object  which  should  be  dear 
to  the  heart  of  every  New  Yorker.  But  I  desire 
in  regard  to  the  other  objects,  to  point  out  how 
easy  it  will  be  hereafter  to  convert  this  building 
into  a  great  People's  Gallery  of  Art.  Its 
structure  is  eminently  adapted  for  the  purpose. 
We  stand  here  on  the  city's  ground,  and  it  will 
be  completely  in  the  power  of  the  city  hereafter 
to  accomplish  this  result.  Long  after  our  Asso- 
ciation shall  have  disappeared,  I  hope  this  build- 
ing may  stand — as  long  as  yonder  massive  and 
majestic  creation  ;  and  like  that,  in  the  hands 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  159 

of  the  public  authorities,  be  one  of  those  monu- 
ments which  makes  the  Government  dear  to  the 
people.  [Cheers.]  Allow  me  to  say  a  few  words 
of  our  purposes.  The  undertaking  is  a  private 
one — fostered  by  no  governmental  aid  ;  but  the 
interests  are  so  numerous  and  divided  that  not 
the  slightest  color  is  afforded  for  the  charge  of 
speculation.  There  are,  I  venture  to  say,  very 
few  undertakings  of  equal  magnitude  which  are 
represented  by  so  large  a  number  of  parties, 
and  it  thus  becomes  practicable  to  impress  upon 
the  direction  and  management  of  the  enterprise 
that  broad,  liberal,  impartial,  and,  as  it  were, 
national  character  which  is  essential  to  its 
proper  development.  If  our  success  is  what  we 
expect  and  intend  it  shall  be,  we  shall  claim 
the  honor  of  it  for  our  institutious — those  insti- 
tutions which  enable  private  individuals  to  ac- 
complish what  in  other  countries  vast  govern- 
mental efforts  are  required  to  effect.  We  shall 
claim  the  honor  for  the  country  and  for  the 
people ;  for  that  mixture  of  individual  energy 
and  practical  accommodation  which  gives  such 
wonderful  efficiency  to  the  American  character ; 
for  that  public  spirit  and  private  good  feeling  of 
which  we  have  such  striking  evidence  here  to- 
day— bringing  together  at  this  moment,  men  of 
all  parties,  to  work  together  for  a  common 
object  of  general  interest.  [Cheers.]  Other  con- 
siderations, sir,  yet  remain,  which,  at  some 


160  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF    THEE.'* 

other  time,  I  shall  ask  higher  and  holier  person- 
ages to  develop,  but  which  I  cannot  now  alto- 
gether overlook.  When  this  structure  shall  be 
raised — when  its  lofty  dome  shall  have  rushed 
upward  to  the  point  where  that  flag  now  floats 
— when  its  crystal  surface  shall  reflect  in  streams 
of  radiance  our  warm  American  sun — when  its 
graceful  and  majestic  interior  shall  be  filled 
with  the  choicest  products  of  both  worlds — our 
minds  will  soar  upward  beyond  and  above  all  the 
material  considerations  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
and  will  recognize  our  own  nothingness,,  and  the 
infinite  superiority  of  the  Power  by  whose  favor 
we  are  permitted  to  do  what  little  we  effect. 
And  we  shall  then  unite  to  pour  forth  our 
thanks  for  His  mercies,  and  our  supplications 
for  His  forgiveness  and  protection."  [Ix>ud 
cheers.] 

The  Governor  immediately  replied  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  Mr.  President :  Availing  myself  of  the  in- 
vitation so  kindly  extended  to  me  by  the  Asso- 
ciation over  which  you  preside,  I  have  come  to 
participate  in  the  appropriate  ceremonies  of  this 
occasion,  and  to  manifest  the  sincere  interest  and 
approval  with  which  I  regard  your  noble  under- 
taking. 

'  You  have  now  reared  the  first  column  of  an 
edifice  intended  to  attract  the  productions  of 
genius,  industry,  and  art  from  all  the  civilized 


CHICAGO    IN    1856, 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  161 

nations  of  the  world.  This  liberal  design  is  in 
harmony  with  the  prevailing  spirit  and  tendency 
of  the  age  in  which  we  live,  and  its  successful 
completion  will  form  a  conspicuous  landmark 
in  the  history  of  American  progress.  It  is  a 
generous  conception,  alike  honorable  to  the 
public  spirit  and  patriotism  of  the  citizens  form- 
ing the  Association,  and  important  in  its  in- 
fluence upon  the  advancement  and  happiness  of 
society. 

'  The  conquests  already  made,  and  the  in- 
creasing interest  evinced  by  our  countrymen  in 
the  culture  of  those  useful  arts  which  promote 
the  physical  prosperity  and  moral  elevation  of  a 
people  are  a  source  of  just  pride  and  encourag'e- 
meiit  to  the  American  statesman. 

"  By  the  blessing  of  Providence  we  are  per- 
mitted to  work  out  our  destiny  in  a  period  of 
profound  peace.  For  more  than  a  third  of  a 
century  the  civilized  world  has  been  exempt 
from  those  destructive  wars  and  convulsions 
which  had  so  long  wasted  the  best  energies  of 
the  human  race.  Nobler  purposes  engage  the 
thoughts  of  men  and  the  councils  of  nations. 

"  Instead  of  meeting  in  battle  array,  and 
spreading  havoc  and  desolation  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  a  kindlier  rivalry  prevails,  and  govern- 
ments cope  with  each  other  in  a  more  generous 
spirit  of  emulation  ;  in  works  of  beneficence  and 
improvement ;  in  the  expansion  of  commerce, 
11 


162  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

the  encouragement  of  industry,  and  the  triumphs 
of  peaceful  invention. 

"  People,  widely  separated  from  each  other  by 
intervening  seas  and  diversities  of  language  and 
institutions  are  now  drawn  nearer  together  by 
rapid  and  constant  commercial  intercourse.  Re- 
mote countries  are  enabled  to  confer  inestimable 
benefits  upon  each  other  by  a  free  interchange 
of  useful  discoveries  and  improvements,  thus 
stimulating  industry  and  skill  throughout  the 
world,  each  imparting  to  all  the  fruits  of  its  own 
civilization,  and  (above  all)  diffusing  over  the 
globe  the  spirit  of  universal  brotherhood,  which, 
in  God's  good  time,  shall  unite  the  human  family 
by  the  cordial  ties  of  sympathy  and  concord. 

;<  When  considered  in  a  mere  political  aspect, 
the  wonderful  display  of  the  industry  of  all  na- 
tions, exhibited  in  England  last  year,  must  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important  events  in 
modern  history. 

"  I  rejoice  to  witness  the  enlightened  efforts 
of  my  own  countrymen  to  emulate  so  noble  an 
example. 

''  The  prosecution  and  success  of  the  enterprise, 
now  so  auspiciously  begun,  cannot  fail  to  exert 
a  salutary  influence,  and  to  produce  the  most 
valuable  results. 

"  It  will  elevate  the  national  character  abroad, 
and  advance  our  best  interests  at  home. 

( It   will   stimulate   our   people  to-  new  and 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  163 

higher  efforts,  until  we  shall  finally  attain  to. an 
equality  with  the  older  nations  in  every  useful 
and  ornamental  art.  It  will  promote  the  devel- 
opment and  improvement  of  those  natural  advan- 
tages, so  varied  and  remarkable,  with  which  our 
country  is  favored  ;  and  furnish  another  proof  of 
the  elevating  influence  of  free  institutions. 

"  In  conclusion,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen 
of  the  Association,  permit  me  to  congratulate 
you  upon  this  auspicious  commencement.  The 
whole  country  will  rejoice  in  the  consummation 
of  your  great  purpose.  Accept  my  sincere 
wishes  that  your  labors  in  the  work  of  civiliza- 
tion and  beneficent  progress  may  "be  crowned 
with  the  success  which  is  due  to  so  bright  an 
example  of  disinterested  public  spirit." 

Mayor  Kingsland  followed,  in  a  few  brief  re- 
marks, expressive  of  his  sense  of  the  importance 
of  the  undertaking,  and  his  sincere  desire  to  see 
it  carried  out  to  a  most  successful  completion. 

General  Talmadge,  on  the  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can Institute,  offered  the  managers  of  the  Crystal 
Palace  his  warmest  congratulations  upon  the 
raising  of  the  first  pillar  of  their  edifice,  and 
that,  too,  under  such  auspicious  circumstances. 
The  American  Institute  (he  said)  was  glad  to 
find  such  worthy  comrades  co-operating  with 
them  to  advance  the  general  prosperity  of  the 
country. 

Appropriate   airs   were    then   played   by  the 


164  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

band,  and  the  "  large  assemblage  "  shortly  after- 
ward went  their  way  rejoicing  in  the  event  of 
the  day,  with  hearty  wishes  for  the  successful 
completion  of  the  New  York  Crystal  Palace. 
Such  was  the  first  formal  celebration  of  what 
seemed  to  its  ^projectors  a  most  stupendous  en- 
terprise. But  the  next  year  saw  a  much  more 
imposing  demonstration,  when,,  on  July  i4th, 
1853,  the  nearly  completed  building  was  for- 
mally inaugurated.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  traveled  from  Washington  to  New 
York  to  take  part  in  the  august  ceremonial,  his 
deliberate  progress  of  several  days,  by  coach, 
boat,  and  train,  being  the  theme  of  many  col- 
umns of  patriotic  chronicles  in  the  daily  press. 
Here  is  a  leading  journal's  account  of  the  open- 
ing exercises : 

"The  i4th  of  July,  1853,  will  henceforward 
rank  in  our  history  as  a  great  day.  Then  was 
consecrated  unto  Art  and  Industry  a  building 
novel  and  splendid,  as  regards  architecture,  and 
containing  productions  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth.  The  Crystal  Palace  is  far  more  beautiful 
than  its  original  in  London,  though  much  infe- 
rior in  size.  It  covers,  however,  five  acres.  Its 
sides  are  composed  of  glass,  supported  by  iron. 
Its  dome  is  truly  magnificent,  and  is  a  triumph 
of  art.  The  prevailing  colors  of  the  ceiling  are 
blue,  red,  and  cream  color.  The  single  fault  we 
find  with  the  colors  of  the  other  portions  of  the 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  165 

building  is  that  the  supporting  pillars  are  of  the 
same  color  with  the  other  solid  works,  while  if 
they  were  bronzed,  a  certain  sameness  would  be 
avoided. 

"  Notwithstanding  the  immense  confusion  of 
the  Palace  on  the  day  preceding  the  inaugura- 
tion, we  were  surprised,  on  entering  it  yesterday 
morning,  to  find  the  dome  completed  and  glori- 
ous in  its  artistic  beauty  ;  the  stairways  arrayed 
with  their  crimson  and  gold,  and  many  of  the 
divisions  elaborate  in  their  ornamentation,  com- 
pletely arranged,  and  containing  their  various 
contributions. 

"  The  vastness  of  the  City  of  New  York  was 
strikingly  illustrated  by  the  weather  of  yester- 
day. The  President  and  his  suite  were  caught 
in  a  heavy  rain  in  the  lower  part  of  the  city, 
lasting  an  hour,  while  the  early  visitors  at  the 
Palace  were  ignorant  of  the  circumstance,  the 
atmosphere  being  dry  and  the  sun  bright  in 
that  quarter. 

"  The  approaches  to  the  Palace  were  very 
much  crowded  as  we  proceeded  there  about 
eleven  o'clock.  The  thickly-studded  drinking- 
shops  were  flaunting  in  their  intemperate  seduc- 
tions. The  various  shows  of  monsters, 
mountebanks,  and  animals,  numerous  as  the 
jubilee-days  of  the  Champs  Elysees,  opened  wide 
their  attractions  to  simple  folk.  Little  specu- 
lators in  meats,  fruits,  and  drinks  had  their 


166         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

tables  and  stalls  al fresco.  A  rush  and  whirl  of 
omnibuses,  coaches,  and  pedestrians  encircled 
the  place.  But  amid  all  this  was  plainly  dis- 
cernable  the  excellent  provisions  of  the  police  to 
maintain  order.  The  entrances  to  the  Palace 
were  kept  clear,  and  no  disturbance  manifested 
itself  through  the  day.  Different  colored  tickets 
admitted  the  visitors  at  three  different  sides  of 
the  Palace,  the  fourth  closing  up  against  the 
giant  Croton  Water  Reservoir. 

"  There  were  two  platforms  partially  under 
the  dome,  the  centre  point  under  which  being 
occupied  by  Baron  Marochetti's  exceedingly 
absurd  statue  of  Washington,  with  Carew's  inde- 
scribably absurd  statue  of  Webster — the  worst 
calumny  on  that  great  man  ever  yet  perpetrated, 
or  that  can  be  perpetrated — standing  behind  it. 
One  of  these  platforms  was  toward  Forty-second 
Street,  or  the  north  nave ;  the  other  toward  the 
Croton  Water  Reservoir,  on  the  east  nave. 
According  to  the  programme,  they  were  filled  by 
the  following  classes  of  persons : 

ON   NORTH    NAVE   PLATFORM. 

General  Franklin  Pierce,  President  of  the 
United  States. 

MEMBERS  OF  THE  CABINET. 
Jefferson  Davis,  Secretary  of  War. 
James  Guthrie,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
Caleb  Gushing,  Attorney-General. 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  167 

SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Ohio. 
Richard   Brodhead,  Jr.,  U.   S.    Senator  from 
Pennsylvania. 

OFFICERS   OF  THE   ARMY. 

Major-General  Winfield  Scott,  Commander-in- 
Chief. 

Major-General  John  B.  Wool,  and  a  few 
others. 

OFFICERS   OF  THE  NAVY. 

Commodore  James  Stewart. 

Commodore  Boorman,  of  the  Navy  Yard. 

There  were  several  other  naval  and  military 
officers  present,  but  their  names  are  not  re- 
collected. 

GOVERNORS  OF  VARIOUS  STATES. 

Horatio  Seymour,  Governor  of  the  State  of 
New  York. 

George  F.  Fort,  Governor  of  the  State  of  New 
Jersey. 

Howell  Cobb,  Governor  of  the  State  of 
Georgia. 

THE   CLERGY. 

Rt.  Rev.  Jonathan  M.  Wainright,  D.  D.,  Pro- 
visional Bishop  of  New  York. 

Most  Rev.  John  Hughes,  D.  D.,  Archbishop 
of  New  York. 

Rt.  Rev.  Henry  J.  Whitehouse,  D.  D.,  Bishop 
of  Illinois, 


168  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Gardiner  Spring,  D.D.,  William  Adams,  D.  D., 
and  others. 

THE  JUDICIARY. 

Judge  Betts,  Judge  Edmonds,  Judge  Oakley, 
Judge  Roosevelt,  Judge  Sandford,  Judge  Eminett, 
etc. 

MILITARY,  ETC. 

Major-General  Sandford,  Brigadier-General 
Hall,  Brigadier- General  Morris,  with  the  Staff 
of  the  Major-General. 

FOREIGN  COMMISSIONERS. 
Messrs.  Whitworth  and  Wallace  of  the  Eng- 
lish Commission,  were  present.  Lord  Ellesmere 
we  did  not  see ;  he  had  not  arrived  in  town  at 
ten  o'clock.  Lady  Ellesmere  and  daughters 
were  present. 

FOREIGN  MINISTERS,  ETC. 

General  Almonte,  Minister  Plenipotentiary 
from  Mexico. 

M.  De  Sartiges,  Minister  Plenipotentiary  from 
France. 

M.  De  Osnia,  Minister  Plenipotentiary  from 
Peru. 

ON  THE  EAST  PLATFORM. 

Officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  a  considerable 
number. 

Officers  of  the  "  Leander."  (We  are  not  sure 
that  any  were  present — the  ship  is  not  here.) 


WORLD'S  FAIRS. 

Foreign  Consuls  resident  in  the  City — a  num- 
ber present. 

Judiciary  of  the  Southern  District  of  New 
York. 

Jacob  A.  Westervelt,  Mayor  of  New  York. 

Francis  R.  Tillou,  Recorder  of  the  City  of 
New  York. 

Richard  T.  Compton,  President  of  the  Board 
of  Aldermen. 

Jonathan  Trotter,  President  of  the  Board  of 
Assistants. 

The  Common  Council  were  rather  thinly 
represented  in  numbers. 

Isaac  V.  Fowler,  Postmaster  at  New  York. 

Rev.  Dr.  Ferris,  Chancellor  of  the  University. 

Charles  King,  LL.  D.,  President  of  Columbia 
College. 

Members  of  the  Press,  the  Clergy,  Officers  of 
the  American  Institute,  etc.,  etc. 

"  We  believe  there  was  no  Foreign  Commis- 
sioner, who  came  from  Europe  to  be  present  at 
the  Exhibition,  but  the  Earl  of  Ellesmere.  The 
absence  of  this  Commissioner  yesterday  was 
much  to  be  regrettted,  the  more  so  as  he  was 
prevented  from  coining  by  indisposition.  Lady 
Ellesmere  and  her  two  daughters  were  present, 
however. 

"  There  were  two  military  bands — Dodsworth, 
stationed  in  the  west  gallery  ;  Bloonifield's  U.  S. 


170        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

Band,  in  the  south  gallery,  and  an  orchestra, 
with  Noll's  Military  Band,  and  a  grand  chorus, 
accompanied  also  by  an  organ,  in  the  east 
gallery. 

"  The  President,  being  detained  by  the  storm, 
did  not  arrive  at  the  appointed  time  of  one 
o'clock,  being  delayed  till  about  an  hour  later. 
When  he  did  arrive,  however,  with  his  suite, 
civil  and  military,  he  was  warmly  greeted  by  the 
people  within  the  building,  who  amounted  to 
some  20,000,  as  far  as  we  could  judge.  The 
United  States  Band  struck  up  '  Hail  Columbia,' 
and  finished  with  '  Yankee  Doodle.'  This  part 
of  the  day's  proceedings  was  extremely  interest- 
ing. When  the  shouts  had  died  away,  and 
thousands  of  fair  hands,  waving  their  handker- 
chiefs, had  exhausted  their  first  burst  of  enthu- 
siasm, Bishop  Wainright  delivered,  in  a  full, 
round  voice,  his  appropriate  prayer. 

;'  Then  came  stealing  through  the  vast  aisles 
the  hymn  of  Old  Hundred  set  to  semi-secular 
words.  The  effect  where  we  stood  under  the 
dome  was  mystically  grand.  It  might  be  imag- 
ined to  typify  the  voices  of  distant  nations 
rolling  in  harmonious  vastness  through  the 
aisles,  and  bearing  the  accents  of  gentleness  and 
beneficence.  Their  artistic  interpretation  was 
intrusted  to  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
Sacred  Harmonic  Society,  and  admirably  did 
they  execute  their  task.  Mr.  George  Bristow 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  171 

was  the  conductor  of  the  body.  Mr.  Timm, 
however,  was  the  chief  director  of  all  the  musical 
arrangements.  The  hymn  ran  thus  : 

"  Here,  where  all  climes  their  offerings  send, 

Here,  where  all  arts  their  tribute  lay, 
Before  Thy  presence,  Lord,  we  bend, 
And  for  Thy  smile  and  blessing  pray. 

(<  For  Thou  dost  sway  the  tides  of  thought, 

And  hold  the  issues  in  Thy  hand, 
Of  all  that  human  toil  has  wrought, 
And  all  that  human  skill  has  plann'd. 

<(  Thou  lead'st  the  restless  Power  of  Mind 

O'er  destiny's  untrodden  field, 
And  guid'st,  wandering  bold  but  blind, 
To  mighty  ends  not  yet  revealed. 

"  Next  Mr.  Theodore  Sedgwick,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Crystal  Palace  Association,  rose  and 
addressed  President  Pierce.  The  President  re- 
plied evidently  impromptu,  and  his  words  were 
well  chosen.  He  appeared  fatigued  in  the  pre- 
vious efforts  he  had  made  in  public  speaking 
during  his  journey,  and  was  very  brief.  Mr. 
Pierce,  however,  most  favorably  impressed  his 
auditor}^.  He  was  fluent,  earnest,  and  unabashed 
before  so  vast  an  auditory.  Mr.  Sedgwick,  when 
the  President  had  finished,  proposed  three  cheers 


172  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

for  the  President,  which  were  responded  to  by 
the  multitude. 

"  In  the  mere  proprieties  of  the  day  the  scene 
passed  off  well.  The  speeches  had  the  excellence 
of  brevity ;  the  music  was  fine  and  varied,  great 
rivalry  evidently  existing  between  the  different 
bands  and  orchestras ;  the  audience  was  unex- 
ceptionable in  its  deportment ;  the  appearance 
of  the  feminine  portion  was  brilliant,  and  it 
must  be  added  that  the  directors  liberally  pro- 
vided a  ladies'  refreshment  room  ;  the  attention 
of  those  in  authority,  the  new  uniformed  police 
included,  was  unremitting;  the  progress  made 
in  decorating,  finishing,  and  arraying  the  details 
of  the  building  and  its  contents  in  the  few  last 
days,  when  all  seemed  to  promise  disorder  and 
defeat  on  the  promised  day  of  opening,  was  a 
veritable  wonder  of  industry  ;  the  arrangements 
of  tickets,  places,  entrance,  exits,  were  admira- 
ble ;  the  accommodations  for  the  corps  of  re- 
porters were  liberal  and  thoughtful ;  the  positions 
of  the  sculptural  attractions  were  well  chosen  as 
to  locality,  light,  and  combined  effect ;  and  in  a 
word,  the  whole  was  arranged  as  to  outward 
show  with  a  skill  that  was  unsurpassable. 

"  It  was  a  thing  to  be  seen  once  in  a  lifetime. 
As  we  grow  in  wealth  and  strength  we  may  build 
a  much  greater  Crystal  Palace,  and  accumulate 
more  imperial-like  treasures  than  we  could  now 
afford  to  purchase,  but  it  cannot  have  the  effect 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  173 

of  this  one.  This  has  been  the  first  love  of  its 
kind.  The  second  cannot  bring  the  exhilaration 
and  glory  of  the  first,  though  exhausting  the 
wealth  of  genius  in  its  production.  In  this  we 
behold  the  first  decided  stand  of  America  among 
the  industrial  and  artistic  nations  of  the  earth. 
In  this  we  see  a  recognition  of  her  progress, 
power,  and  possibilities.  In  this  we  find  a  yearn- 
ing after  Peace — Peace  which  shall  dimple  the 
face  of  the  earth  with  the  smiles  of  plenty,  which 
shall  join  the  hearts  of  nations,  which  shall 
abolish  poverty  and  servitude.  God's  earth  loves 
Man  to  her  innermost  depths ;  treat  her  well 
with  Peace,  and  she  will  reward  him  as  a  gener- 
ous mother :  abuse  her  with  War  and  she  will 
drive  him  from  her  presence.  Such  history  has 
proved ;  but  we  may  fairly  believe  that  the  his- 
torical vicissitudes  of  the  past  may  be  avoided  in 
traveling  the  peaceful  and  generous  path  pointed 
out  by  the  Crystal  Palace." 

The  comments  and  eulogiums  of  orators  and 
press  upon  this  first  American  World's  Fair 
were,  of  course,  largely  pitched  in  a  tone  that 
to-day  is  interesting  only  in  contrast.  It  is 
archaic,  primitive,  embryonic,  though  not  devoid 
of  what  has  aptly  been  termed  spread-eagleism. 
One  writer,  however,  discussed  the  theme  with 
memorable  eloquence,  and  in  a  spirit  of  broad- 
minded  philosophy  that  makes  his  almost  every 
word  as  appropriate  to  the  great  fair  of  1893  as 


174  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

to  that  of  forty  years  before.  "  The  exhibition," 
he  said,  "  must  be  particularly  instructive  to 
Americans,  because  it  will  furnish  them  with 
evidences  of  a  skill  in  many  branches  of  creation 
beyond  their  own,  and  of  models  of  workmanship 
which  are  superior  precisely  in  those  points  in 
which  their  own  are  most  deficient.  No  one,  we 
presume,  will  push  his  national  predilections  so 
far  as  to  deny  that,  in  the  finer  characteristics  of 
manufacture  and  art,  we  have  yet  a  vast  deal  to 
learn.  Stupendous  as  our  advances  have  been  in 
railroads,  steamboats,  canals,  printing  presses, 
hotels,  and  agricultural  implements — rapidly  as 
we  are  growing  in  excellence  in  a  thousand 
departments  of  design  and  handicraft — astonish- 
ing as  may  be  our  achievements,  under  all  the 
difficulties  of  an  adverse  national  policy — adroit, 
ingenious,  and  energetic  as  we  have  shown  our- 
selves in  those  labors  which  have  been  demanded 
by  the  existing  conditions  of  our  society,  we  have 
yet  few  fabrics  equal  to  those  of  Manchester,  few 
wares  equal  to  those  of  Birmingham  and  Shef- 
field, no  silks  like  those  of  Lyons,  no  jewelry 
like  that  of  Geneva,  no  shawls  like  those  of  the 
East,  no  mosaics  like  those  of  Italy.  But,  in  our 
rapid  physical  improvements — growing,  as  we 
are,  in  prosperity,  in  population,  in  wealth,  in 
luxuries  of  all  kinds— these  are  the  articles  that 
we  ought  to  have,  and  must  have  to  give  diversity 
to  our  industry,  to  relieve  us  from  dependence 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  175 

upon  other  nations,  to  refine  our  taste,  and  to 
enable  the  ornamental  and  elegant  appliances  of 
our  life  to  keep  pace  with  our  external  develop- 
ment. Mere  wealth,  without  the  refinements  of 
wealth — barbaric  ostentation,  prodigal  display, 
extravagant  self-indulgence — can  only  corrupt 
morals  and  degrade  character.  But  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  finer  arts  redeems  society  from  its 
grossness,  spreads  an  unconscious  moderation 
and  charm  around  it,  softens  the  asperities  of 
human  intercourse,  elevates  our  ideals,  and  im- 
parts a  sense  of  serene  enjoyment  to  all  social 
relations.  Our  common  people,  immeasurably 
superior  to  the  common  people  of  other  nations 
in  easy  means  of  subsistence,  in  intelligence,  as 
in  the  sterling  virtues,  are  yet  almost  as  im- 
measurably behind  them  in  polished  and  gentle 
manners,  and  the  love  of  music,  painting, 
statuary,  and  all  the  more  refining  social 
pleasures. 

"  These  Exhibitions,  then,  which  make  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  superlative  arts  of  other 
nations,  cannot  but  be  highly  useful  to  us.  But 
they  have  also  another  use — a  moral,  if  not  a  re- 
ligious use,  in  that  they  teach  us  so  powerfully 
the  dependence  of  nations  upon  each  other — 
their  mutual  relations,  and  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  each  to  the  comfortable  existence  of  all 
the  rest.  There  is  hardly  an  article  in  the 
Crystal  Palace  to  which  the  labor  of  all  the  world 


176  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

has  not  in  some  sort  contributed — hardly  a 
machine  which  is  not  an  embodied  record  of  the 
industrial  progress  of  the  world — hardly  a  fabric 
which,  analyzed,  does  not  carry  us  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  or  which  does  not  connect  us  inti- 
mately with  the  people  of  every  clime — with  the 
miners  who  tortured  its  raw  material  from  the 
dark  cave,  or  the  diver  who  brought  it  from  the 
bottom  of  the  sea — with  the  solitary  mariner  who 
shielded  it  from  the  tempests — with  the  poor, 
toil-worn  mechanic  who  gave  it  form  or  color,  or 
with  the  artist  who  imparted  to  it  its  final  finish. 
Thus,  no  man  liveth  to  himself  alone,  even  in 
his  most  ordinary  occupations  ;  he  is  part  and 
parcel  of  us,  as  we  are  of  him.  A  wonderful  and 
touching  unity  pervades  the  relations  of  the 
race ;  all  men  are  useful  to  all  men ;  and  we 
who  fancy  that,  in  some  important  respects,  we 
stand  on  the  summit  level  of  humanity,  have  a 
deep  interest  in  the  laborers  of  the  vales — in  the 
celerity,  the  excellence  and  the  success  of  what 
they  do,  and  in  the  comfort  and  happiness  of 
their  general  condition.  As  Emerson  has  wisely 
sung,  in  that  sweet  poem  of  his  : 

4  All  are  needed  by  each  one  ; 
Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone.' 

;'  There  is  also  another  thought  suggested  by 
our  topic  which  contains  a  world  of  meaning. 
We  are  apt  to  speak,  in  our  discussions,  of  the 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  177 

progress  of  industry,  but  do  we  always  ask  our- 
selves wherein  that  progress  consists  ?  Is  it  in 
the  greater  perfection  to  which,  in  modern  times, 
we  have  carried  the  works  of  our  hands  ?  Look 
at  the  elegant  tissues  of  Persia  and  India,  or  at 
the  flexible  blades  of  Toledo  and  Damascus,  and 
say  in  how  far  we  have  surpassed  these  works 
of  semi-barbarous  ages  and  people,  with  all  our 
boasted  mechanical  improvements !  Can  we 
imagine  anything  more  splendid,  more  rich,  and 
more  delicate  than  the  clothes  in  which  the 
Oriental  princes  still  array  themselves,  as  their 
forefathers  used  to  array  themselves  centuries 
ago  ?  Have  we  yet  a  dye  more  brilliant  than 
the  Tyrian,  a  sculpure  equal  to  that  of  Greece, 
an  architecture  better  than  that  of  the  '  Dark 
Ages,'  paintings  on  glass  to  compare  with  those 
in  the  old  cathedrals,  workers  in  bronze  to  rival 
a  Cellini  ?  Is  it  not  the  highest  compliment 
that  we  pay  to  a  product  of  skill  or  genius  to 
say  of  it  that  it  is  'classical,'  that  it  is  worthy 
of  the  models  that  have  been  preserved  for  ages 
in  our  galleries  and  museums  ?  What  then  do 
we  mean  when  we  speak  of  ourselves  as  more 
advanced  than  former  nations ;  what  is  that 
difference  between  us  which  authorizes  us  to  use 
the  word  progress  and  to  look  back  with  a  com- 
placent half-pitying  eye  upon  the  attainments  of 
the  generations  that  have  passed  away  ? 

"  It  is  this :  that  in  our  discoveries  in  science, 
12 


178         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

by  our  applications  of  those  discoveries  to  prac- 
tical art,  by  the  enormous  increase  of  mechanical 
power  consequent  upon  mechanical  invention, 
\ve  have  universalized  all  the  beautiful  and  glori- 
ous results  of  industry  and  skill,  we  have  made 
them  a  common  possession  of  the  people,  and 
given  to  society  at  large,  to  almost  the  meanest 
member  of  it,  the  enjoyments,  the  luxury,  the 
elegance  which  in  former  times  were  the  exclu- 
sive privilege  of  kings  and  nobles.  Formerly 
the  labor  of  the  world  fed,  and  clothed,  and  orna- 
mented the  Prince  and  his  Court,  or  the  warrior 
and  his  chieftains — but  now  it  feeds  and  clothes 
and  ornaments  the  peasant  and  his  family.  Then 
the  ten  thousand  poor,  miserable  wretches  worked 
for  the  one,  or  the  few,  but  now  the  ten  thousand 
work  for  the  ten  thousand.  Then  the  wealth  of 
provinces  was  drained  to  heap  up  splendors  for 
the  lord  of  the  province,  but  now  that  wealth  is 
multiplied  and  diffused,  to  give  happiness  to  the 
commonalty.  All  the  concentrated  capital  of 
Lyons,  and  Leeds,  and  Lowell,  all  our  complicated 
machinery,  while  it  creates  new  demands  for 
human  labor,  is  intended  to  cheapen  manufac- 
turing products,  as  the  effort  of  that  cheapness 
is  to  put  the  fabrics  of  woolen  and  silk  within 
the  reach  of  the  poorest  classes.  Our  books,  at 
this  day,  may  not  be  individually  superior  to  the 
books  of  the  days  of  Elzevir,  but  millions  of  men 
now  possess  books  where  hundreds  only  possessed 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  170 

them  formerly.  Our  vases  and  cups  may  not 
be  more  exquisitely  wrought  than  the  vases  and 
cups  of  Beneveuto  Cellini,  but  they  are  wrought, 
not  like  his,  for  Popes  and  Emperors,  but  for 
Smith  and  Jones,  and  all  the  branches,  collateral 
and  direct,  of  the  immense  families  of  Smith  and 
Jones.  Our  roads  are  not  built  at  a  vast  expense, 
for  some  royal  progress,  or  the  passage  of  a  con- 
quering army,  but  are  built  to  roll  from  house  to 
house  the  precious  treasures  of  industry,  or  a 
happy  freight  of  excursionists,  giving  their  hearts 
a  holiday  of  merriment  and  innocent  delight. 

"Our  progress  in  these  modern  times,  then, 
consists  in  this,  that  we  have  democratized  the 
means  and  appliances  of  a  higher  life ;  that  we 
have  spread,  far  and  wide,  the  civilizing  influences 
of  art ;  that  we  have  brought,  and  are  bringing 
more  and  more  the  masses  of  the  people  up  to 
the  aristocratic  standard  of  taste  and  enjoyment, 
and  so  diffuse  the  influence  of  splendor  and  grace 
over  all  minds.  Grander  powers  have  been  in- 
fused into  society.  A  larger  variety  and  a  richer 
flavor  have  been  given  to  all  our  individual  ex- 
periences ;  and,  what  is  more,  the  barriers  that 
once  separated  our  race,  the  intervals  of  time  and 
space  that  made  almost  every  tribe  and  every 
family  the  enemy  of  every  other  tribe  and  family 
have  been  annihilated  to  enable  the  common 
interests  and  common  enjoyments  to  renovate  and 
warm  us  into  amity  of  feeling  and  the  friend ly 


180  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

rivalry  of  fellow- workmen  pursuing,  under 
different  circumstances,  the  same  great  ends. 

"  Legislation,  rightly  directed,  might  have  done 
and  might  yet  do  much  for  the  civilization  and 
advancement  of  society  ;  but,  unfortunately,  in 
most  nations  of  the  earth,  the  legislation,  having 
been  under  the  exclusive  control  of  a  self-styled 
higher  class,  has  impeded  rather  than  hastened 
the  movement.  Yet,  in  the  face  of  this  terrible 
obstacle,  under  all  the  evils  of  the  insular 
monopoly  of  Great  Britain,  seeking  to  aggrandize 
her  own  manufacturing  industry  at  the  expense 
of  the  industry  of  the  rest  of  mankind,  the  genius 
of  practical  art  has  triumphed,  and  will  triumph 
still  more  over  every  difficulty.  It  is  raising  the 
laborer  to  his  true  position  ;  it  is  facilitating  the 
association  of  men ;  it  is  harmonizing  their 
interests ;  and,  whether  legislation  helps  it  or 
not,  it  will  ultimately  redeem  our  race  from  de- 
pendence and  slavery.  And  herein  is  the  chief 
reason  why  we  to-day  salute  with  satisfaction  the 
opening  of  the  Crystal  Palace." 

The  Crystal  Palace  was  not  a  financial  suc- 
cess. Nearly  a  million  dollars  were  lost  in 
the  enterprise.  Finally,  on  the  evening  of 
Tuesday,  October  5th,  1858,  the  edifice  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire,  with  most  of  its  contents.  It  was 
really  not  a  very  great  conflagration,  measured 
by  others  that  have  occurred.  Yet  it  meant  the 
destruction  of  an  entire  World's  Fair  establish- 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  181 

ment,  and  was,  in  those  times,  something  more 
than  a  nine  days'  wonder.  "  About  five  o'clock 
last  evening,"  said  a  next  morning's  paper, 
"  smoke  was  seen  issuing  from  a  large  room  in 
the  north  nave,  and  in  front  of  the  entrance  on 
Forty-second  Street,  and  in  less  than  half  an  hour 
thereafter,  the  Palace  was  a  total  wreck,  and 
nothing  now  remains  of  this  edifice  but  a  heap 
of  unsightly  ruins.  The  octagonal  turrets  at 
each  corner  still  remain  standing,  while  here 
and  there  on  every  side  may  be  seen  stacks  of 
iron,  the  remains  of  staircases,  and  portions  of 
the  framework  composing  the  galleries. 

"  From  the  room  above  mentioned  flames  soon 
made  their  appearance,  and  spread  with  in- 
credible rapidity  in  every  direction.  There  were 
about  2,000  persons  scattered  about  the  edifice  at 
the  time,  all  of  whom,  the  moment  the  alarm  of 
1  fire  '  was  raised,  made  a  rush  for  the  Sixth 
Avenue  entrance,  the  doors  of  which  were  thrown 
open.  The  entrance  on  Fortieth  Street  was 
closed,  there  being  no  other  means  of  ingress  or 
egress  except  on  Sixth  Avenue.  Under  the  di- 
rection of  ex-Captain  Maynard  and  several  of 
the  Directors  of  the  Institute,  the  crowd  of 
visitors  were  conducted  safely  to  the  street,  and 
no  one  that  we  have  heard  of  was  in  anywise 
injured.  Some  of  the  exhibitors  endeavored  to 
save  their  property,  but  were  forced  to  turn 
toward  the  door,  and  were  soou  compelled  to  flee 


182  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF    THEE." 

to  the  street.  The  amount  of  property  saved  is 
comparatively  trifling.  Mr.  Smith,  an  employee 
of  "the  Institute,  behaved  nobly.  He  was  in 
charge  of  the  jewelry  department,  and  was  en- 
gaged repairing  a  case  when  the  alarm  was 
given.  He  finished  the  case  and  closed  the 
door  and  then  went  toward  where  the  fire  was. 
The  smoke  was  so  dense  that  he  almost  suffo- 
cated. He  saw  the  fire  at  the  Forty -second 
Street  entrance  and  then  ran  back  to  the 
property  that  had  been  placed  in  his  charge, 
which  property  consisted  of  a  quantity  of 
watches  valued  at  several  thousand  dollars. 
Seizing  the  case,  he  dragged  it  from  its  fasten- 
ing along  the  gallery,  down  a  flight  of  stairs, 
and  thence  out  into  the  street,  the  entrance  at 
this  point  having  at  this  time  been  broken  open. 
While  on  his  way  out,  the  dome  was  all  in  flames. 
The  smoke  was  so  dense  that  he  could  see  but  a 
few  feet  either  side  of  him,  and  he  is  under  the 
impression  that  he  was  the  last  man  in  the 
Palace  before  the  dome  fell.  A  young  man 
named  Wallis,  also  in  the  employ  of  the  Insti- 
tute, heard  the  alarm,  and  ran  toward  Smith, 
whom  he  desired  to  break  open  the  case  with  an 
axe,  in  order  that  the  jewelry  and  watches  could 
be  more  readily  got  at,  but  Smith  told  him  he 
would  not  do  so.  Wallis  was  obliged  to  run  to 
the  street,  the  smoke  nearly  suffocating  him. 
The  view  from  the  street  and  neighboring  build- 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  183 

ings  was  very  grand,  and  thousands  of  persons 
thronged  to  the  scene  of  conflagration." 

The  Institute  mentioned  was  the  well-known 
American  Institute,  of  New  York,  which,  after 
the  close  of  the  World's  Fair  proper,  had  occti- 
'pied  the  Palace  with  its  annual  fair.  It  was 
reckoned  that  the  total  loss  by  the  fire -was  a  mil- 
lion dollars,  but  the  list  of  the  chief  exhibitors  and 
their  individual  losses,  published  next  day,  now 
looks  absurdly  meagre.  And  thus  passed  out 
of  existence  the  first  Universal  Exhibition  of 
Art  and  Industry  ever  held  on  the  American 
Continent.  When  the  next  was  held,  this  was 
practically  a  new  nation.  The  greatest  war  of 
modern  times  had  been  fought  and  the  National 
Constitution  amended  in  many  important  re- 
spects. Political  and  social  changes  of  startling 
character  were  visible  on  every  hand.  Material 
growth  and  development  had  been  achieved  on  a 
stupendous  scale.  Great  inventions  had  been 
made.  Every  circumstance,  indeed,  rendered  it 
fitting  and  necessary  that  the  second  World's 
Fair  should  immeasurably  exceed  in  all  respects 
that  which  we  have  just  described. 

When  the  World's  Fair  of  1853  was  opened  in 
New  York  it  was  evident  that  the  American 
nation  was  nearing  some  great  and  important 
changes.  When  the  Crystal  Palace  was  burned 
in  1858,  the  nation  was  on  the  very  verge  of  the 
"impending  conflict"  which  had  been  long 


181         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

foreseen.  The  war  came.  At  its  close  America 
was  a  new  nation.  Its  political,  social,  and 
industrial  systems  were  transformed.  Its  growth 
and  expansion  received  an  enormous  impetus. 
The  influx  of  population  and  of  ideas  and  arts 
from  other  countries  was  many-fold  greater  than 
ever  before.  And  thus  it  approached  the  one- 
hundredth  anniversary  of  its  independence,  and 
preparations  were  made  to  commemorate  the 
time  with  a  second  Universal  Exhibition. 

The  Centennial  Exhibition,  which  was  held  in 
Philadelphia  in  1876,  was  the  greatest  fair  the 
world  had  then  seen.  None  of  its  predecessors 
had  equalled  it  in  extent,  or  surpassed  it  in 
variety  or  general  interest.  Paris,  in  1867,  nac^ 
given  a  more  compact  and  systematic  display, 
and  at  Vienna,  in  1873,  Oriental  nations  were 
more  fully  represented.  But  the  American  Ex- 
hibition had  many  points  of  superiority  over 
those.  It  showed  the  natural  products,  indus- 
tries, inventions,  and  arts  of  the  Western  Hem- 
isphere as  they  had  never  been  shown  before,  and 
brought  them  for  the  first  time,  in  their  fullness 
and  perfection,  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  Old 
\\  orld.  In  the  department  of  machinery  it  was 
incomparably  superior  to  all  its  predecessors,  and 
also  in  that  of  farm  implements  and  products, 
In  fine  arts  it  did  not  contain  as  many  really 
great  masterpieces  as  had  been  seen  at  Paris  and 
Vicuna,  but  it  enibraced  a  wider  representation 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  185 

of  contemporary  art  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
In  general  manufactures  the  display  was  much 
greater  in  quantity  than  had  ever  before  been 
attempted.  And  it  greatly  exceeded  all  other  fairs 
as  a  really  international  exhibition,  for  every 
civilized  state  on  the  globe,  excepting  Greece  and 
a  few  minor  republics  in  Central  and  South 
America,  was  represented. 

About  236  acres  of  Fairmount  Park  in 
Philadelphia  were  occupied  by  the  Exhibition. 
The  ground  was  admirably  adapted  for  the 
purposes  of  the  Fair.  It  was  an  elevated 
plateau,  with  three  spurs  jutting  out  toward  the 
Schuylkill  River.  One  of  the  three  spurs  was 
occupied  by  Memorial  Hall,  containing  the  art 
exhibition,  another  by  Horticultural  Hall,  and 
the  third  by  Agricultural  Hall,  while  the  broad 
plain  where  they  joined  contained  the  Main 
Building,  Machinery  Hall,  United  States  Gov- 
ernment Building,  and  about  a  hundred  smaller 
structures.  The  grounds  were  traversed  by  five 
main  avenues,  a  belt-line  railroad,  and  many 
miles  of  minor  walks.  There  was  an  extensive 
lake,  and  a  splendid  wealth  of  lawns,  flowerbeds, 
and  groves. 

The  Main  Building  was  the  largest  edifice  in 
the  world.  It  was  1,876  feet  long  and  464  feet 
wide,  covering  21^  acres  of  ground.  In  the 
centre  were  four  square  towers,  120  feet  high. 
The  facades  at  the  end  were  90  feet  high,  andth§ 


180  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS    OF   THEE." 

corner  towers  75  feet.  The  central  aisle  was 
1,832  feet  long,  120  feet  wide,  and  70  feet  high. 
The  framework  was  of  iron,  filled  in  with  wood 
and  glass.  Nearly  one-third  of  the  space  was 
occupied  by  American  exhibitors.  Great  Britain 
and  her  colonies  occupied  the  next  largest  area, 
witli  a  display  of  enormous  proportions  and  daz- 
zling brilliancy.  A  single  firm  of  silversmiths 
sent  half  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  wares. 
France  and  her  colonies  and  the  German  Kmpire 
were  also  splendidly  represented.  Other  con- 
spicuous exhibitors  were  Holland,  Belgium, 
Austria,  Russia,  Spain,  Japan,  Sweden  and  Nor- 
way, Italy,  and  China.  Mexico,  Brazil,  Switzer- 
land, Portugal,  Egypt,  Turkey,  Denmark,  Tunis, 
Chile,  the  Argentine  Republic,  Peru,  the  Orange 
Free  State,  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  Venezuela 
were  also  represented.  Never  before  had  there 
been  gathered  together  in  one  place  such  a  com- 
prehensive display  of  the  arts  and  industries  of 
so  many  of  the  peoples  of  the  world. 

Machinery  Hall,  which  was  especially  devoted 
to  machinery  in  motion,  was  1,402  feet  long  and 
360  feet  wide,  with  an  annex  208  by  210  feet 
for  hydraulic  machinery.  There  were  more 
than  10,000  feet  of  shafting  for  conveying  to  the 
various  machines  the  motive  power  generated 
by  the  huge  Corliss  engine.  This  enormous 
machine  had  cylinders  of  44  inches  diameter,  and 
ten  feet  stroke,  a  fly-wheel  30  feet  in  diameter, 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  187 

and  56  tons  in  weight,  making  36  revolutions 
per  minute.  There  were  20  tubular  boilers  of 
70  horse-power  each,  and  at  60  pounds  pressure 
the  work  of  the  engine  was  about  1,400  horse- 
power. This  building  contained  by  far  the 
largest  and  most  varied  display  of  working 
machinery  that  had  at  that  time  ever  been  seen 
in  the  world. 

Horticultural  Hall  was  a  graceful  Moorish 
palace,  largely  built  of  glass,  and  contained  a 
magnificent  exhibit  of  trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers 
from,  all  parts  of  the  world.  Agricultural  Hall 
consisted  of  a  nave  826  feet  long  and  100  wide, 
crossed  by  three  transepts,  each  465  feet  long, 
and  from  80  to  100  feet  wide.  The  inclosed  space 
was  about  12  acres  in  extent,  and  it  contained  a 
marvellous  display  of  agricultural  implements 
and  products  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Memorial  Hall  was  intended  as  a  permanent 
building,  and  was  constructed  in  substantial 
manner  of  granite,  glass,  and  iron.  It  is  365 
feet  long  and  210  feet  wide,  with  a  square  tower 
at  each  corner,  and  a  four-sided  dome  at  the 
centre.  Besides  these  buildings  the  United 
States  Government  erected  a  vast  structure, 
360  by  300  feet,  for  the  display  of  the  operations 
of  its  various  departments  ;  many  foreign 
governments  had  buildings  of  their  own ;  so 
had  more  than  a  score  of  the  States  ;  and  there 
were  also  buildings  for  the  Judges,  and  for  a 
great  number  of  special  industries. 


188  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

The  technical  history  of  the  enterprise  may 
be  briefly  recounted  as  follows  :  The  Exhibition 
was  really  a  natural  outgrowth  of  the  Universal 
Exposition  held  at  Paris  in  1867.  That  affair 
was  much  the  most  extensive  international  ex- 
hibition ever  held  up  to  that  time,  and  its 
brilliant  success  produced  a  marked  impression 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  Austria  took 
immediate  measures  to  rival  it,  and  carried  out 
her  ambitious  plans  six  years  later  at  Vienna. 
Among  the  many  Americans  who  saw  the 
wonderful  show  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine  there 
were  many  who  expressed  a  desire  to  see  an 
enterprise  of  the  kind  attempted  in  their  own 
country.  It  is  believed  that  Gen.  C.  B.  Norton, 
of  New  York,  one  of  the  Commissioners  to  the 
Paris  Exposition,  was  the  first  who  suggested 
the  idea  of  a  World's  Fair  to  commemorate  the 
Centennial  Anniversary  of  American  Inde- 
pendence. This  he  did  while  viewing  the 
preparations  for  the  exposition  in  the  Champs 
de  Mars  in  company  with  Mr.  Dudley  S. 
Gregory,  of  New  York,  in  the  summer  of  1866. 
His  plan  was  to  hold  the  exhibition  in  Central 
Park.  Mr.  Gregory  returned  in  the  fall  and 
laid  the  matter  before  the  American  Institute, 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  any  action  was  taken, 
The  next  agitation  of  the  question  was  in  June, 
1868,  when  at  a  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts 
exhibitors  at  Paris,  held  in  the  Music  Hall,  Bos- 
ton, for  the  distribution  of  the  awards  forwarded 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  189 

by  the  French  Government  to  this  country, 
Dr.  C.  J.  Jackson  offered  a  resolution  in  favor  of 
an  international  exhibition  in  Washington,  to 
open  July  4th,  1876.  After  some  speech-making 
the  resolution  was  adopted.  In  the  fall  of  the 
same  year  a  meeting  to  forward  the  project  was 
held  in  New  York  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Dr.  G.  B.  Loring.  A  committee  of  nine  was  ap- 
pointed, but  there  the  matter  ended.  New  York 
had  failed  to  appreciate  the  grandeur  and  im- 
portance of  the  project.  Washington  had  a 
livelier  comprehension,  but  was  too  poor  to  do 
anything  that  involved  expenditure. 

It  now  remained  for  Philadelphia  to  come  for- 
ward. In  1869  Mr.  M.  Richard  Muckle,  of  The 
Philadelphia  Ledger,  wrote  a  letter  to  President 
Grant,  urging  the  holding  of  a  World's  Fair  in 
the  city  where  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  signed,  and  this  letter,  widely  published  and 
commented  upon,  fairly  set  the  ball  in  motion. 
Soon  after  it  appeared  the  Franklin  Institute  and 
the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  memorialized  Congress 
on  the  subject,  and  the  City  Councils  appointed 
a  Centennial  Committee.  In  February,  1871,  a 
committee  from  the  New  Jersey  Legislature 
visited  Philadelphia  to  confer  Math  the  Councils, 
and  in  April  a  delegation  from  Virginia  came  on 
the  same  errand.  At  the  instance  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania members,  Congress  took  up  the  question 
in  the  session  of  1870-71,  and  on  the  3d  of  March 


190  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

passed  an  act  "  to  provide  for  celebrating  the 
One  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  American  Inde- 
pendence by  holding  an  International  Exhibition 
of  arts,  manufactures,  and  products  of  the  soil 
and  mine  in  the  City  of  Philadelphia  and  State 
of  Pennsylvania,  in  the  year  1876."  Under  this 
act  one  hundred  Commissioners  were  appointed ; 
but  it  was  found  impossible  to  assemble  a  quorum 
of  this*mwieldy  body,  and  the  organization  was 
changed  by  a  supplementary  act,  providing  for 
one  Commissioner  and  one  alternate  from  each 
State  and  Territory,  appointed  by  the  President 
on  the  nomination  of  the  Governors.  No  money 
was  appropriated.  In  June,  1872,  Congress 
passed  another  act,  creating  a  separate  corpora- 
tion, called  the  Board  of  Finance,  to  raise  funds 
by  subscriptions  throughout  the  country,  and  to 
take  entire  charge  of  the  finances  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion, which  was  made  a  stock  concern,  with  a 
capital  of  $10,000,000,  in  shares  of  $10  each. 
Large  subscriptions  were  at  once  obtained  from 
the  citizens  of  Philadelphia.  The  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania appropriated  $1,000,000;  the  City  of 
Philadelphia,  $1,500,000;  the  State  of  New 
Jersey,  $100,000;  and  the  States  of  Delaware, 
New  Hampshire,  and  Connecticut,  $10,000  each. 
Subscriptions  amounting  to  about  $250,000  were 
subsequently  raised  in  New  York  City.  The 
business  men  of  the  New  England  States  also 
contributed,  but  the  West  gave  almost  nothing, 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  191 

and  the  South  nothing.  The  aggregate  amount 
spent  by  foreign  countries  for  the  Exhibition  was 
about  $2,500,000. 

On  June  26th,  1873,  Governor  Hartranft  in- 
formed the  President  that  provision  had  been 
made  for  erecting  the  buildings.  Upon  that  in- 
formation the  President,  on  July  3d  of  the  same 
year,  issued  his  proclamation  declaring  that  the  Ex- 
hibition would  beheld  in  1876.  Secretary  Fish, 
on  the  5th  of  July,  informed  the  representatives 
of  foreign  nations  of  the  Exhibition,  and  invited 
them  to  participate.  Formal  acceptances  were 
received,  before  the  beginning  of  1876,  from 
Great  Britain,  France,  Austria,  Germany,  Bel- 
gium, Sweden,  Holland,  Spain,  Portugal,  Italy, 
Norway,  Egypt,  Denmark,  Turkey,  Switzerland, 
Mexico,  Venezuela, Brazil, Chile,  Peru,  Argentine 
Confederation,  Sandwich  Islands,  China,  Japan, 
Australia,  Canada,  Bolivia,  Nicaragua,  Colombia, 
Liberia,  Orange  Free  State,  Equador,  Guatemala, 
Salvador,  and  Honduras.  March  3d,  1875,  Con- 
gress appropriated  $505,000  for  the  arrangement 
of  an  official  Government  display,  of  which 
$150,000  was  to  be  appropriated  for  the  erection 
of  a  special  building  for  the  Government  Ex- 
hibition. On  the  4th  of  July,  1873,  the  Com- 
missioners of  Fairmount  Park  formally  conveyed 
450  acres  of  land  at  Lansdowne,  in  the  Park, 
for  buildings  and  other  purposes  of  the  Ex- 
hibition. 


192         "MY -COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

In  1873  the  Commission  sent  Professor  W.  P. 
Blake,  of  Connecticut,  to  the  Vienna  Exhibition 
as  a  Special  Commissioner  to  study  and  report 
upon  it.  The  General  Director,  Mr.  A.  T. 
Goshorn,  also  made  a  thorough  examination  of 
that  fair.  Ground  was  broken  for  the  Exhibi- 
tion buildings  July  4th,  1874.  Machinery  Hall 
was  completed  in  November,  1875,  Horticultural 
Hall  and  the  Main  Building  in  January,  1876, 
and  Memorial  Hall  and  Agricultural  Hall  in 
April.  In  February,  1876,  Congress  appropri- 
ated $1,500,000  to  complete  the  payments  for  the 
buildings,  and  thus  enabled  the  Commission  to 
open  the  Exhibition  free  from  debt. 

The  formal  opening  of  the  Centennial  Ex- 
hibition was  effected  on  May  zoth,  1876.  At 
nine  o'clock  A.  M.  on  that  day  the  gates  of  the 
grounds,  with  the  exception  of  those  at  the  east 
end  of  the  Main  Building,  were  opened  to  the 
public  at  the  established  rate  of  admission  of 
fifty  cents  each.  The  Main  Building,  Memorial 
Hall,  and  Machinery  Hall  were  reserved  for 
guests  and  exhibitors  until  the  conclusion  of  the 
ceremonies,  at  about  one  p.  M.,  when  all  restric- 
tions were  withdrawn.  The  inaugural  cere- 
monies were  conducted  in  the  open  air,  on  an 
area  of  about  300  by  700  feet  between  the  Main 
Building  and  Memorial  Hall.  The  concourse  of 
spectators  within  sight  of  the  ceremonies,  though 
largely  not  within  hearing  distance,  was  more 


UI.YSSKS    S.    GRANT. 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  193 

than  110,000.  At  an  early  hour  a  military 
parade  moved  from  the  city  to  the  exhibition 
grounds.  At  its  head  was  the  First  Troop  of 
Philadelphia  City  Cavalry,  acting  as  the  body- 
guard of  the  President  of  the  United  States.  This 
was  followed  by  the  Boston  Cadets  and  the 
Boston  Lancers,  escorting  Governor  Rice,  of 
Massachusetts,  and  his  staff.  Governor  Hart- 
ranft,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  his  staff  came  next, 
and  were  succeeded  by  Major-General  Bankson 
and  a  large  body  of  Pennsylvania  State  troops. 
No  flags  nor  other  ensigns  were  displayed  on  or 
about  the  buildings  and  grounds  until  an  ap- 
pointed signal  was  given,  and  all  the  organs, 
bells,  and  other  musical  instruments  awaited  in 
silence  the  same  notice. 

At  10.15  A.  M.  the  huge  orchestra  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pieces,  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Theodore  Thomas,  began  playing  the  various 
national  airs  of  the  world.  First  was  played 
"  The  Washington  March,"  after  which  came  the 
national  music  of  the  Argentine  Republic,  Aus- 
tria, Belgium,  Brazil,  Denmark,  France,  Ger- 
many, Great  Britain,  Italy,  the  Netherlands, 
Norway,  Russia,  Spain,  Sweden,  Switzerland, 
and  Turkey,  concluding  with  "  Hail  Columbia." 
On  the  arrival  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States — General  U.  S.  Grant — accompanied  by 
the  Emperor  Dom  Pedro,  of  Brazil,  the  Director 
General  of  the  Exhibition,  and  other  notable 

13 


194  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

personages,  the  "  Centennial  Inauguration 
March,"  which  had  been  composed  by  Richard 
Wagner  for  the  occasion,  was  performed.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Matthew  Simpson,  Bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  then  offered  prayer. 
A  hymn,  written  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier, 
was  sung  by  the  choir  of  one  thousand  voices  to 
music  composed  by  John  K.  Paine,  with  organ 
and  orchestral  accompaniment.  John  Welsh, 
President  of  the  Centennial  Board  of  Finance, 
formally  presented  the  buildings  to  the  Centen- 
nial Commission.  A  cantata,  written  by  Sidney 
Lanier,  of  Georgia,  with  music  by  Dudley  Buck, 
was  sung  by  the  chorus,  with  solos  by  Myron  W. 
Whitney.  General  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  President 
of  the  United  States  Centennial  Commission, 
formally  presented  the  Exhibition  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  who  responded  in  a 
brief  address,  closing  with  the  words,  "  I  declare 
the  International  Exhibition  now  open."  At  that 
moment  a  thousand  flags  were  unfurled  on  every 
hand,  innumerable  bells  and  whistles  were 
sounded,  a  salute  of  one  hundred  guns  was  fired, 
and  Handel's  "Hallelujah  Chorus  "  was  sung 
by  the  great  choir,  with  organ  and  orchestral 
accompaniment.  Then  the  President  and  other 
distinguished  guests  formed  in  a  small  proces- 
sion and  moved  through  the  principal  buildings. 
In  Machinery  Hall  the  President  and  the 
Emperor  of  Brazil  set  in  motion  the  great  engine 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  195 

and  all  the  machinery  connected  therewith,  being 
assisted  by  Mr.  George  H.  Corliss,  the  builder 
and  giver  of  the  engine.  Then  the  President 
and  other  guests  were  escorted  to  the  Judges' 
pavilion,  where  a  brief  reception  was  held.  This 
concluded  the  opening  exercises,  and  thenceforth 
the  grounds  and  buildings  were  open  to  the 
public,  at  fifty  cents  admission,  every  week-day 
until  November  loth,  when  the  Exhibition  was 
closed. 

A  number  of  the  State  Governments  arranged 
excursions  to  the  Exhibition  by  the  State  officers 
and  citizens  generally.  These  "  State  days,"  as 
they  were  termed,  were  as  follows  :  New  Jersey, 
August  24th ;  Connecticut,  September  yth ; 
Massachusetts,  September  i4th ;  New  York, 
September  2ist ;  Pennsylvania,  September  28th; 
Rhode  Island,  October  5th ;  New  Hampshire, 
October  i2th  ;  Delaware  and  Maryland,  October 
i9th ;  Ohio,  October  26th  ;  and  Vermont,  Octo- 
ber 27th. 

The  other  principal  events  on  the  season's 
calendar  were  as  follows  :  May  23d,  Session  of 
True  Templars ;  May  24th,  Meeting  of  Judges 
of  Awards ;  May  3Oth,  Decoration  Day  and 
Opening  of  the  Bankers'  Building;  June  ist, 
Parade  of  Knights  Templar;  June  yth,  Conven- 
tion in  Brewers'  Hall;  June  I2th,  Women's 
International  Temperance  Convention ;  June 
1 5th,  Dedication  of  Ice  Water  Fountain  by  the 


196  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Sons  of  Temperance;  June  2/th  to  July  loth, 
Encampment  of  the  West  Point  Cadets  ;  July 
ist,  Excursion  of  Soldiers'  Orphans  from  Lin- 
coln Home ;  July  4th,  Centennial  Celebration  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  Dedication 
of  the  Catholic  Total  Abstinence  Beneficial 
Society's  Fountain;  July  6th,  yth,  8th,  i3th, 
i8th,  i9th,  20th,  2ist,  Excursions  given  by  the 
Philadelphia  &  Reading  Railroad  to  its  Em- 
ployees;  July  1 5th,  Encampment  of  the 
Columbus,  Ohio,  Cadets;  August  3d  to  9th, 
Encampment  of  Pennsylvania  Troops ;  August 
3Oth,  Excursion  of  Steinway  &  Sons'  Em- 
ployees ;  August  22d,  National  and  International 
Rowing  Matches  began  on  the  Schuylkill  River ; 
August  23d,  Parade  of  the  Knights  of  Pythias ; 
August  28th,  Parade  of  Swiss  Citizens  ;  August 
29th,  Reception  by  the  Mayor  of  Philadelphia ; 
September  ist  to  October  i8th,  Live  Stock  Ex- 
hibitions ;  September  2d,  Encampment  of  Con- 
necticut National  Guard ;  September  4th,  Inter- 
national Medical  Congress;  September  2oth, 
Odd  Fellows'  Day ;  September  23d,  International 
Rifle  Teams — Scotch,  Irish,  Australian,  and 
American — visited  the  Exhibition;  September 
28th,  Grand  Display  of  Fireworks  ;  October  yth, 
Encampment  of  Cadets  of  Virginia  Military  In- 
stitute ;  October  i2th,  Dedication  of  Statue  of 
Columbus ;  October  i4th,  Dedication  of  Statue 
of  Dr.  Witherspoon;  October  iQth,  Tourna- 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  197 

inent ;  October  26th,  Merchants' Day  ;  Novem- 
ber 2d,  Dedication  of  Statue  to  Bishop  Allen  by 
Colored  Citizens ;  November  yth,  Reception  by 
Women's  Centennial  Executive  Committee ; 
November  9th,  International  Pyrotechnic  Con- 
test ;  November  loth,  Closing  Ceremonies. 

The  United  States  Centennial  Commission 
held  an  imposing  commemoration  of  the  Cen- 
tennial Anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence in  Independence  Square  on  July 
4th.  The  following  was  the  programme  of 
exercises : 

1.  Grand  Overture,  "The  Great    Republic," 
founded  on  the  National  Air,  "  Hail  Columbia," 
and  arranged  for  the  occasion  by  the  composer, 
George  F.  Bristow,  of  New  York ;  rendered  by 
the   orchestra   under   the   direction   of   Patrick 
Sarsfield  Gilinore. 

2.  The  President  of  the  Commission,  General 
Joseph  R.  Hawley,  called  the  assembly  to  order 
and  announced  the  acting  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,  Senator  Thomas  W.  Ferry,  as  the 
presiding  officer  of  the  day  in  the  absence  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States. 

3.  Prayer  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  B.  Stevens, 
Protestant  Episcopal  Bishop  of  Pennsylvania. 

4.  Hymn,    "  Welcome    to    all    Nations,"    by 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  to  the  music  of  Keller's 
"  National  Hymn." 

5.  Reading  of   the   Declaration  of  Indepeu- 


198  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE," 

dence  from  the  original  manuscript  by  Richard 
Henry  Lee  of  Virginia. 

6.  Greeting    from    Brazil ;   a    Hymn    for   the 
First   Centennial    of   American    Independence, 
composed  by  A.   C.  Gomes,    of  Brazil,   at  the 
request  of  the  Emperor  Dom  Pedro ;  rendered  by 
the  orchestra. 

7.  Reading   of  "  National   Ode,"    by   Bayard 
Taylor. 

8.  Grand    Triumphal    March,    with    chorus, 
"Our    National    Banner;"     words    by    Dexter 
Smith,  of    Massachusetts,   music  by  Sir  Julius 
Benedict,  of  Hngland. 

9.  Oration,  by  William  M.  Evarts,   of  New 
York. 

10.  Hallelujah  Chorus,  from  Handel's  "  Mes- 
siah." 

11.  Doxology,  "  The  Old  Hundredth  Psalm." 
Space  will  not  permit  the  printing  here  of  the 

oration  or  other  features  of  the  programme, 
with  the  exception  of  the  hymn,  "  Welcome  to 
All  Nations,"  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  which 
was  as  follows : 

I. 

Bright  on  the  banners  of  lily  and  rose, 
Lo,  the  last  sun  of  the  century  sets ! 

Wreathe  the  black  cannon  that  scowled  on  our 

foes , 
All  but  her  friendships  the  nation  forgets ! 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  199 

All  but  Her  friends  and  their  welcome  forgets  ! 

These  are  around  her,  but  where  are  her  foes  ? 
Lo,  while  the  sun  of  the  century  sets, 

Peace  with  her  garlands  of  lily  and  rose  ! 

n. 
Welcome  !  a  shout  like  the  war-trumpets  swell, 

Wakes  the  wild  echoes  that  slumber  around  ! 
Welcome  !  it  quivers  from  Liberty's  bell ; 

Welcome  !  the  walls  of  her  temple  resound ! 
Hark  !  the  gray  walls  of  her  temple  resound ! 

Fade  the  far  voices  o'er  river  and  dell ; 
Welcome  !  still  whisper  the  echoes  around ; 

Welcome !  still  trembles  on  Liberty's  bell ! 

in. 

Thrones  of  the  continents  !  Isles  of  the  sea  ! 

Yours  are  the  garlands  of  peace  we  entwine ! 
Welcome  once  more  to  the  land  of  the  free, 

Shadowed  alike  by  the  palm  and  the  pine, 
Softly  they  murmur,  the  palm  and  the  pine, 

"  Hushed  is  our  strife  in  the  land  of  the  free." 
Over  your  children  their  branches  entwine, 

Thrones  'of  the  continents  !    Isles  of  the  sea 

The  distribution  of  awards  to  exhibitors 
occurred  in  the  Judges'  Hall  on  Wednesday, 
September  syth,  with  an  interesting  programme 
of  music  and  addresses. 

On  November   9th   a   farewell   banquet   was 


200  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

given  to  the  Foreign  Commissioners  and  Judges 
of  Awards  by  the  Centennial  Commission  and 
Board  of  Finance  in  St.  George's  Hall.  The 
guests  on  this  occasion  included  the  Com- 
missioners and  Diplomatic  Representatives  of 
the  nations  which  had  participated  in  the  Ex- 
hibition, the  Chief  Justice  and  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  a  number 
of  Senators  and  members  of  the  United  States 
Congress,  the  Secretary  of  State  and  other 
members  of  the  Cabinet  of  the  United  States, 
the  Governors  of  Pennsylvania,  Massachusetts, 
Delaware,  and  New  Jersey  ;  the  Mayor  of  Phila- 
delphia, the  Presidents  of  the  Philadelphia  City 
Councils,  and  the  officers  and  members  of  the 
Fairmount  Park  Commission,  the  Centennial 
Commission,  and  the  Centennial  Board  of 
Finance.  The  President  of  the  United  States 
was  the  presiding  officer  of  the  evening.  Dur- 
ing the  course  of  the  banquet  addresses  were 
made  by  representatives  of  the  several  bodies 
participating,  and  by  Commissioners  of  each  of 
the  foreign  countries  represented,  each  being 
introduced  in  turn  by  the  President  of  the  Cen- 
tennial Commission  amid  the  applause  of  the 
guests. 

The  closing  ceremonies  of  the  Exhibition  oc- 
curred on  Friday,  November  loth.  They  were 
to  have  been  held  like  the  opening  exercises, 
out-of-doors,  but  stormy  weather  made  it  neces* 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  201 

sary  to  hold  them  within  the  Judges'  Hall.  At 
sunrise  a  Federal  salute  of  thirteen  guns  was  fired. 
The  programme  proper  was  opened  with  the  In- 
auguration March,  composed  by  Richard 
Wagner,  and  performed  by  the  orchestra 
under  Theodore  Thomas.  Prayer  was  offered 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  A.  Seiss.  Addresses 
followed  by  D.  J.  Morrell,  United  States  Cen- 
tennial Commissioner  from  Pennsylvania,  and 
Chairman  of  the  Bxecutive  Committee  ;  John 
Welsh,  President  of  the  Centennial  Board  of 
Finance  ;  A.  T.  Goshorn,  Director  General,  and 
Joseph  R.  Hawley,  President  of  the  United 
States  Centennial  Commission  ;  alternating  with 
musical  selections  rendered  by  the  chorus  and 
orchestra.  After  General  Hawle}^'s  address,  the 
national  hymn,  "  My  Country,  'tis  of  Thee," 
was  rendered  by  the  orchestra,  choir,  and  general 
audience.  During  the  singing,  the  American 
flag  which  was  carried  by  John  Paul  Jones 
on  his  frigate,  the  "  Bon  Honime  Richard,"  in 
1779,  was  unfurled  above  the  platform,  and  a 
salute  of  forty-seven  guns  was  fired.  Then  the 
President  of  the  United  States  rose  and  said  :  "I 
now  declare  the  International  Exhibition  of 
1876  closed."  General  Hawley  said  :  "  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  will  now  give  the  sig- 
nal to  stop  the  great  engine."  The  President 
then  waved  his  hand  to  a  telegraph  operator, 
who  instantly  sent  an  electric  message  to  the 


202  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

engineer  in  Machinery  Hall,,  and  at  exactly 
3.40  o'clock  P.  M.  the  great  engine  ceased  to 
work.  The  singing  of  the  Doxology  by  the 
choir  and  audience  concluded  the  ceremony. 

It  will  be  of  interest  to  add,  for  purposes  of 
record  and  reference,  some  statistics  regarding 
the  Exhibition.  Nearly  all  supplies  of  goods, 
and  nearly  all  visitors  were  brought  to  Phila- 
delphia over  the  lines  of  two  railroad  companies, 
the  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Philadelphia  & 
Reading.  During  1874  these  roads  delivered  at 
the  Exhibition  grounds  3,341  loaded  freight  cars  ; 
in  1875,  10,479  5  and  i*1  ^76,  6,340 ;  a  total  of 
20,160  loaded  cars  bearing  about  200,000  tons  of 
freight.  During  the  continuance  of  the  Ex- 
hibition there  arrived  at  the  Centennial  station 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  23,972  passenger 
trains,  and  at  the  station  of  the  Philadelphia 
&  Reading  Railroad,  42,495.  The  average 
number  of  trains  daily  was  more  than  410,  and 
the  average  number  of  cars  to  each  train  more 
than  6,  giving  accommodations  in  the  whole 
number  of  trains  for  over  20,000,000  passengers, 
The  greatest  service  in  one  day  at  the  Pennsyl- 
vania depot  comprised  250  trains  of  2,004  cars, 
bearing  58,347  passengers;  and  at  the  Phila- 
delphia &  Reading  station  on  the  same  day 
370  trains  of  2,867  cars,  bearing  185,800  pas- 
sengers;  a  total  of  620  trains,  4,871  cars,  and 
244^47  passengers.  During  the  entire  Ex- 


WORLD'S  FAIRS.  203 

hibition  there  arrived  at  the  Pennsylvania  depot 
1,392,697  passengers,  and  at  the  Philadelphia 
&  Reading  1,726,010. 

There  were  received  at  the  Exhibition  from  all 
the  countries  of  the  world  154,273  packages  of 
goods,  weighing  57,116,658  pounds;  and  there 
were  removed  from  the  grounds  at  the  close  of 
the  fair  58,700  packages,  weighing  27,041,271 
pounds. 

From  May  loth  to  November  loth,  1876,  there 
were  admitted  to  the  grounds  a  grand  total  of 
9,910,966  persons,  from  whom  were  received 
admission  fees  amounting  to  $3,813,724.49. 
The  largest  number  admitted  on  any  day  was 
274,919,  on  Pennsylvania  Day,  September  28th. 
The  smallest  number,  12,720,  was  admitted  on 
Friday,  May  i2th.  The  largest  number  of  per- 
sons passing  through  a  single  gate  in  a  single 
hour  was  1,870.  The  day  of  the  week  most 
popular  among  visitors  was  Thursday,  with  an 
average  of  76,905  attendants,  and  the  least 
popular  was  Monday,  with  an  average  of 
50,051. 

The  total  number  of  persons  transported  to 
and  from  the  Exhibition  was  19,821,932,  of  whom 
3,574,528  came  on  local  trains,  2,334,804  on  rail- 
road trains  from  out  of  the  city,  10,557,100  by 
tramways,  556,500  by  steamboat,  803,000  by 
carriages,  and  1,996,000  on  foot. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION. 

New  York  World's  Fair  of  1853  was 
JL  the  third  universal  exposition  ever  held, 
and  was  almost  exactly  contemporaneous  with 
the  second.  That  in  Philadelphia  in  1876  was 
the  eighth.  That  in  Chicago  in  1893  will  be  the 
fourteenth,  and  will  surpass  in  size  and  interest 
all  its  predecessors.  As  a  rule,  such  exhibitions 
have  been  held  simply  to  stimulate  commerce 
and  manufactures  and  educate  the  public  in  the 
progress  of  art  and  industry.  One  notable  ex- 
ception to  this  rule  was  observed  in  1876,  when 
the  Universal  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia,  besides 
fulfilling  those  objects,  also  served  to  commemo- 
rate the  centenary  of  American  Independence. 
So,  too,  the  great  fair  at  Chicago  is  to  mark  the 
four  hundredth  anniversary  of  that  memorable 
enterprise  in  which  Christopher  Columbus  found 
a  new  world,  not  only,  as  the  legend  on  his 
banner  declared,  for  Castile  and  Leon,  but  for 
civilization  and  for  humanity. 

Great  as  was  the  advancement  of  the  nation, 
material  and  otherwise,  between  1853  and  1876, 
it  has  been  no  less  marked  and  impressive  be- 
tween the  latter  date  and  the  present  time.  The 
exhibition  at  Chicago,  accordingly,  may  be  ex- 

204 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  205 

pected  in  like  measure  to  surpass  that  at  Phila- 
delphia in  variety  and  extent.  There  are  new 
inventions  to  display  which  were  unheard  of  in 
1876,  but  which  now  are  familiar  as  household 
words.  There  are  the  fruits  of  the  labor  and 
skill  of  the  many  millions  who  have  been  added 
to  the  population  of  America.  There  are  the 
results  of  experience  and  observation  at  the 
great  fairs  held  in  other  lands.  There  are  in- 
numerable circumstances  and  conditions  combin- 
ing to  make  this  by  far  the  most  important 
exhibition  the  world  has  yet  seen. 

During  the  years  1889  and  1890  there  was 
much  public  discussion  of  the  proposed  celebra- 
tion of  the  fourth  Columbian  centenary.  When 
a  general  agreement  was  reached  that  it  should 
chiefly  take  the  form  of  a  World's  Fair,  the 
question  arose  ,  in  what  city  the  enterprise  should 
be  placed.  Rivalry  became  exceedingly  keen, 
especially  between  New  York,  Chicago,  and 
Washington,  and  presently  it  was  seen  that  one 
of  these  three  must  secure  the  prize.  But 
which  ?  Washington  was  the  national  capital, 
and  thus  an  appropriate  site ;  it  was  accessible, 
it  had  magnifient  grounds  for  the  purpose.  As 
for  New  York,  it  was  the  metropolis,  the  busi- 
ness and  social  capital,  the  chief  port,  the  city 
of  greatest  size  and  wealth  and  interest.  In 
favor  of  Chicago  it  was  urged  that  it  was,  with 
its  marvellous  growth  and  enterprise,  most  truly 


206  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE. 

representative  of  the  American  spirit ;  that  it 
was  nearest  to  the  centre  of  the  country,  and 
that  in  point  of  general  fitness  it  was  second  to 
no  other.  The  ultimate  decision  was  left  with 
Congress,  and  it  was  in  favor  of  Chicago ;  where- 
upon all  rivalries  were  forgotten,  and  New  York 
and  the  whole  nation  joined  loyally  in  the  work 
of  helping  forward  the  gigantic  undertaking. 

Congress  and  the  President  gave  to  the 
enterprise  the  stamp  of  official  sanction,  and  the 
State  Department  formally  invited  the  nations 
of  the  world  to  participate  in  the  great  exhibi- 
tion. In  response  no  less  than  forty-nine 
nations  and  colonies  sent  prompt  acceptances, 
and  will  accordingly  make  exhibits,  showing  the 
advances  made  in  the  arts  and  sciences  and  the 
progress  generally  of  each  in  every  field  of 
human  endeavor.  These  are  :  Argentine  Re- 
public, Austria-Hungary,  Belgium,  Bolivia, 
Brazil,  China,  Chile,  Colombia,  Costa  Rica, 
Denmark,  Danish  West  Indies,  Ecuador,  France, 
Algeria,  French  Guiana,  Germany,  Great 
Britain,  Barbadoes,  British  Columbia,  British 
Guiana,  Honduras,  Cape  Colony,  Ceylon, 
Jamaica,  New  South  Wales,  New  Zealand,  Trini- 
dad, Guatemala,  Hayti,  British  Honduras, 
Japan,  Mexico,  Dutch  Guiana,  Dutch  West 
Indies,  Nicaragua,  Paraguay,  Persia,  Peru,  Rus- 
sia, Salvador,  San  Domingo,  Siam,  Spain,  Cuba, 
Porto  Rico,  Turkey,  Uruguay,  Venezuela,  Zan- 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  207 

zibar.  Of  course  all  the  States  and  Territories 
of  the  Union  will  also  be  fully  represented,  with 
displays  that  will  surpass  by  far  those  made  at 
Philadelphia  in  1876. 

It  is  fitting  to  take  at  least  a  brief  glance  at 
the  extraordinary  city  in  which  this  latest  and 
greatest  Universal  Exhibition  is  to  be  held — ex- 
traordinary both  in  its  history  and  in  its  present 
status.  The  first  white  man  who  trod  its  soil 
was  the  famous  French  missionary,  Father 
Marquette.  He  went  thither  in  1673.  Later, 
La  Salle,  Joliet,  Hennepin,  and  others  visited 
the  region ;  but  none  of  them  made  any  settle- 
ment there.  Indeed,  while  Boston,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  other  cities  were 
attaining  great  size  and  almost  venerable  age, 
the  site  of  this  Western  metropolis  remained  a 
wilderness.  In  1804,  however,  the  Government 
established  a  frontier  military  post  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Chicago  River,  calling  it  Fort  Dearborn. 
The  little  garrison  remained  there  eight  years 
and  then,  in  1812,  was  annihilated  by  the 
Indians,  though  a  few  other  white  settlers  sur- 
vived and  held  their  ground.  The  next  attempt 
at  settlement  occurred  in  1829,  when  James 
Thompson  surveyed  the  site  for  a  proposed  town. 
On  August  loth,  1833,  the  settlement  was  in- 
corporated, there  being  twenty-eight  legal 
voters.  On  March  4th,  1837,  a  city  charter  was 
obtained,  and  thenceforth  the  growth  of  the 


208  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

place  was  rapid  and  substantial  beyond  all 
imagination.  In  1840  the  population  was 
4,479 ;  in  1850  it  was  28,269 ;  in  1860  it  was 
112,172;  and  1870  it  was  298,977. 

In  the  fall  of  1871  occurred  an  event  notable  not 
only  in  the  history  of  Chicago,  but  of  the  whole 
world.  A  little  before  midnight,  on  October  9th, 
a  fire  broke  out,  at  the  corner  of  De  Koven  and 
Jefferson  Streets.  The  weather  for  weeks  had 
been  dry,  and  a  high  wind  prevailed.  Before 
daylight  the  fire  had  burned  its  way  to  Lincoln 
Park,  nearly  four  miles ;  and  by  the  following 
afternoon  it  had  spread  over  2,100  acres, 
100,000  people  were  homeless,  and  $200,000,000 
worth  of  property  was  destroyed.  The  business 
part  of  the  city  was  a  waste  of  ashes.  With 
characteristic  generosity  the  whole  country 
sprang  to  the  relief  of  the  stricken  city.  A 
fund  of  nearly  $5,000,000  was  quickly  collected, 
and  the  work  of  succoring  the  needy  and  re- 
building the  city  was  begun.  Within  two  years, 
almost  every  trace  of  the  stupendous  calamity 
had  vanished,  and  the  growth  of  the  city  pro- 
ceeded even  more  swiftly  than  before.  In  1 880 
its  population  was  503,185,  and  in  1890  it  had 
been  swelled  to  the  enormous  total  of  1,098,576 
— the  second  city  of  the  Union.  Its  growth  is  at 
the  rate  of  more  than  1,000  per  week. 

When  it  was  incorporated,  Chicago  covered  an 
area  of  two  and  a  half  square  miles  ;  now  it 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  209 

covers  181.7  square  miles.  Its  lake  front  is  22 
miles,  and  its  frontage  on  the  river  58  miles. 
It  has  more  than  2,230  miles  of  streets,  mostly 
broad  and  well  paved.  Its  water  supply  is  drawn 
from  away  out  in  Lake  Michigan,  and  amounts 
to  a  hundred  gallons  daily  for  each  inhabitant, 
though  the  works  are  capable  of  furnishing 
twice  that  quantity.  Twenty-six  independent 
railroad  lines  enter  the  city,  making  it  the 
greatest  railroad  centre  in  America.  The 
principal  roads  are  the  Atchinson,  Topeka  & 
Santa  Fe,  Baltimore  &  Ohio,  Chicago,  Burling- 
ton &  Quincy,  Chicago,  Milwaukee  &  St. 
Paul,  Chicago,  Rock  Island  &  Pacific,  Chicago, 
St.  Paul  &  Kansas  City;  Chicago  &  Alton, 
Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois,  Chicago  &  Grand 
Trunk,  Chicago  &  Northern  Pacific,  Chicago 
&  Northwestern,  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  Chi- 
cago &  St.  Louis ;  Illinois  Central,  Lake 
Shore  &  Michigan  Southern,  Louisville,  New 
Albany  &  Chicago ;  Michigan  Central,  con- 
necting with  other  Vanderbilt  roads ;  New 
York,  Lake  Erie  &  Western  ;  Northern  Pacific, 
Pennsylvania,  Union  Pacific,  Wabash,  and  Wis- 
consin Central. 

Nor  is  Chicago  lacking  in  facilities  for  trans- 
portation by  water.  Its  situation  gives  it  easy 
access  to  all  the  commercial  activities  of  the 
great  lake  system ;  and  it  has  direct  water  com- 
munication by  way  of  the  St.  Lawrence  River 


210  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

with  Montreal,  and  by  the  Erie  Canal  and  Hud- 
son River  with  New  York.  In  the  year  1890 
the  arrivals  and  clearances  at  Chicago  numbered 
18,472,  aggregating  a  tonnage  of  8,774,154  tons. 
About  25  per  cent,  of  the  entire  lake-carrying 
trade  belongs  to  Chicago. 

There  is,  moreover,  connection  with  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  by  way  of  the  Illinois  and  Michi- 
gan Canal,  the  annual  traffic  amounting  to  about 
1,000,000  tons. 

In  a  city  of  such  rapid  growth  as  Chicago, 
dealing  in  real  estate  and  the  construction  of 
buildings  are  important  departments  of  business. 
Thus,  in  1890  a  total  of  11,608  buildings  were 
erected  in  the  city,  having  a  gross  frontage  of 
more  than  fifty  miles,  and  costing  $47,322,100. 
During  the  same  year  the  transactions  in  real 
estate  aggregated  $227,486,959. 

The  general  business  of  Chicago  can  only  be 
stated  by  the  use  of  figures  too  vast  for  human 
comprehension.  No  man,  for  example,  can  ap- 
preciate what  "  a  billion  dollars  "  means.  Well, 
the  commerce  of  Chicago  in  1890  amounted  to 
more  than  that,  in  fact,  to  $1,380,000,000.  Much 
of  this  came  from  the  grain  farms  of  the  North- 
west, for  Chicago  is  the  greatest  grain  market  in 
the  world.  According  to  its  Board  of  Trade 
reports,  the  city  in  the  year  1890  received 
I5»I33,97I  bushels  of  barley  and  shipped 
9,470,221;  received  81,117,251  bushels  of  corn 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  211 

and  shipped  90,556,109;  received  4,358,058  bar- 
rels of  flour  and  shipped  4,410,535;  received 
13,366,699  bnshels  of  wheat  and  shipped 
11,975,276;  received  64,430,560  bushels  of  oats 
and  shipped  70,768,222  ;  received  2,946,720 
bushels  of  rye  and  shipped  3,280,433;  received 
6,244,847  bushels  of  flaxseed  and  shipped 
6,594,581 ;  received  72,102,031  pounds  of  grass 
seed  and  shipped  59,213,035  ;  received  7,663,828 
live  hogs  and  shipped  1,985,700 ;  received 
77,985  pounds  of  pork  and  shipped  392,786;  re- 
ceived 147,475,267  pounds  of  lard  and  shipped 
471,910,128  ;  received  300,198,241  pounds  of 
cured  meats  and  shipped  823,801,460;  received 
109,704,834  pounds  of  dressed  beef  and  shipped 
964,134,807. 

In  the  same  year  2,219,312  head  of  cattle,  and 
5,733,082  hogs  were  slaughtered.  Sales  of 
lumber  were  2,050,000,000  feet.  The  breweries 
produced  2,250,000  barrels  of  beer.  The  general 
jobbing  trade  aggregated  $486,600,000,  of  which 
$93,730,000  was  in  dry  goods,  groceries  coming 
next  with  a  volume  of  $56,700,000 ;  boots  and 
shoes,  $25,900,00;  clothing,  $21,500,000;  manu-. 
factured  iron,  $5,680,000 ;  tobacco  and  cigars, 
$10,850,000;  music  books  and  sheet  music, 
$22,000,000  ;  books,  stationery,  and  wall-paper, 
$25,500,000;  pig-iron,  $20,035,000;  coal, 
$25,075,000;  hardware  and  cutlery,  $17,500,000; 
liquors,  $13,800,000;  jewelry,  watches  and  dia- 


212  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

monds,  $20,400,000,  and  other  lines  in  smaller 
proportions. 

Nor  does  this  marvellous  city  lag  behind  in 
manufactures.  The  statistics  of  1890  show 
3,250  factories,  with  $190,000,000  capital; 
177,000  workmen,  $96,200.000  wages,  and  a 
total  output  valued  at  $538,000,000.  The  iron 
industry  alone  employed  34,000  workmen,  who 
received  $18,500,000  in  wages. 

To  meet  the  needs  of  this  vast  volume  .of 
business,  extensive  banking  facilities  are  re- 
quired. The  total  of  bank  clearances  in  Chicago 
in  1890  was  $4,093,145,904. 

Figures  are  dry  reading.  But  these  few  sta- 
tistics are  necessary  to  show  what  manner  of  city 
is  this  Western  metropolis  in  which  the  greatest 
exhibition  of  the  world's  industry  is  to  be  held. 
How  the  city  was  selected  has  already  been  told. 
The  conditions  on  which  the  work  was  carried 
forward  may  be  well  explained  in  the  words  of 
of  W.  T.  Baker,  the  President  of  the  Local 
Board  of  Commissioners  :  "  The  Act  of  Congress, 
approved  April  25th,  1890,  providing  for  the 
Exposition,  states  in  the  preamble  that  *  such 
an  exhibition  should  be  of  a  national  and  inter- 
national character,  so  that  not  only  the  people 
of  our  Union  and  this  continent,  but  those  of  all 
nations  as  well  can  participate.'  And  to  carry 
out  this  intention  the  Congress  provided  two 
agents  to  do  its  will.  The  first  is  a  commission 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  213 

consisting  of  two  Commissioners  from  each 
State  and  Territory  in  the  United  States,  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  on  the  nomination  of 
the  Governors  of  the  State  and  Territories  re- 
spectively, and  eight  Commissioners-at-Large 
appointed  by  the  President.  The  board 
so  constituted  was  -designated  the  World's 
Columbian  Commission.  The  duties  of  the  Com- 
mission relate  to  exhibits  and  exhibitors,  or,  as 
stated  in  the  act,  '  to  prepare  a  classification  of 
exhibits,  determine  the  plan  and  scope  of  the 
Exposition,  appoint  all  judges  and  examiners 
for  the  Exposition,  award  all  premiums,  if  any, 
and  generally  have  charge  of  all  intercourse 
with  exhibitors  and  representatives  of  foreign 
nations.' 

fi  The  other  agent  recognized  by  the  Act  of 
Congress  is  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition,  a 
corporation  organized  under  the  laws  of  the 
State  of  Illinois.  This  corporation  had  to  do 
mainly  with  ways  and  means,  the  erection  of 
buildings,  the  maintenance,  protection,  and 
policing  of  the  same,  the  granting  of  con- 
cessions, the  collection  and  disbursements  of  all 
its  revenues,  and  fixing  the  rules  governing  the 
Exposition.  It  is  composed  of  upward  of  28,000 
stockholders,  and  is  controlled  by  a  board 
of  forty-five  directors.  Those  directors  have 
been  chosen  from  among  the  active  business 
men  of  Chicago,  and  are  every  one  of  them  men 


214        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

who  have  made  an  honorable  success  of  the 
pursuits  which  they  have  followed  in  finance, 
commerce,  and  manufactures,  and  are  giving 
their  time  and  their  best  energies  to  the  success 
of  the  Exposition.  Their  names  are  many  of 
them  known  wherever  American  commerce  has 
been  permitted  to  extend.  The  Board  of  Di- 
rectors is  divided  into  thirteen  standing  Com- 
mittees having  jurisdiction  over  the  several 
departments  of  the  commission,  and  the  directory 
and  all  expenditures  are  directed  and  scrutinized 
by  them  as  closely  as  is  done  in  the  private  affairs 
of  the  best  managed  mercantile  establishments. 

"  The  jurisdiction  of  these  two  bodies,  as  to  the 
details  of  the  work,  somewhat  embarrassing  at 
the  outset,  was  settled  by  a  compact  between 
them,  and  they  work  together  harmoniously 
and  effectively.  Under  this  compact  fifteen 
grand  departments  were  determined  upon,  the 
heads  of  which  are  appointed  by  the  Director 
General,  who  is  the  executive  officer  of  the  com- 
mission, and  all  expenses,  except  the  salary  of 
the  Director  General,  are  paid  by  the  World's 
Columbian  Exposition  Company." 

In  order  that  the  City  of  Chicago  might  enjoy 
the  honor  conferred  upon  her  by  having  the  Ex- 
hibition held  there,  she  was  required  to  furnish 
an  adequate  site,  acceptable  to  the  National 
Commission,  and  $10,000,000  in  money,  which 
sum  was,  in  the  language  of  the  Acts  of  Con- 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  215 

gress,  considered  necessary  and  sufficient  for  the 
complete  preparation  for  the  Exhibition.  This 
obligation  the  citizens  of  Chicago  met  promptly. 
A  suitable  site  and  $10,000,000  were  provided, 
and,  on  evidence  thereof,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  issued  his  proclamation,  inviting 
the  nations  of  the  earth  to  participate  in  the  Ex- 
hibition. The  $10,000,000  was  secured,  first,  by 
subscriptions  to  the  capital  stock  of  the  corpora- 
tion to  the  amount  of  more  than  $5,000,000,  and 
a  municipal  appropriation  to  the  City  of  Chicago 
of  $5,000,000.  People  of  all  classes  subscribed 
to  the  .capital  stock,  from  the  richest  millionaires 
to  the  poorest  wage-earners,  and  the  entire  sum 
of  $5,000,000  was  subscribed  in  a  very  short 
time.  An  additional  issue  of  stock  was  made, 
and  it  also  was  rapidly  taken  up,  until  the  popu- 
lar subscriptions  aggregated  nearly  $8,000,000. 
This,  with  the  municipal  appropriation,  placed 
about  $13,000,000  in  the  treasury  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion. But,  as  the  work  went  on,  the  original 
plans  were  enlarged  in  this  direction  and  in  that, 
until  it  was  seen  that  the  original  estimate  of 
$10,000,000  was  absurdly  inadequate.  Accord- 
ingly a  loan  of  $5,000,000  was  asked  from  the 
general  Government,  to  bring  the  total  funds  up 
to  $18,000,000. 

The  projectors  of  the  Exhibition  estimate  that 
the  total  receipts  from  admission  tickets  will 
amount  to  at  least  $7,000,000.  This  is  not 


21G  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE. 

deemed  excessive,  as  will  be  appreciated  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  at  the  rate  of  less  than  $1,200,000 
a  month,  $300,000  a  week,  or  $50,000  a  day, 
not  including  Sundays.  The  Exhibition  is  to 
be  open  at  night  as  well  as  day,  and  in  Chicago 
and  within  a  radius  of  a  few  hours'  journey  from 
it  there  are  more  than  2,000,000  people  to  draw 
from,  not  taking  into  account  visitors  from  a  dis- 
tance. With  $7,000,000  gate  receipts,  $2,000,000 
from  salvage,  and  $1,000,000  from  leasing  of 
privileges  on  the  grounds,  the  income  of  the 
Exhibition  would  reach  $10,000,000.  From  this 
it  is  proposed  to  repay  the  Government  its 
$5,000,000,  and  to  divide  the  remainder  among 
the  subscribers  to  the  capital  stock.  The  city's 
appropriation  of  $5,000,000  is  an  absolute  gift, 
and  is  not  to  be  repaid. 

But  even  these  vast  sums  represent  only  a 
portion  of  the  money  that  will  be  expended  upon 
the  Columbian  Exhibition.  The  United  States 
Government  will  spend  about  $2,000,000.  The 
State  of  Illinois  appropriates  about  $800,000; 
Pennsylvania,  $350,000 ;  Iowa  and  Ohio,  $250,- 
ooo  each,  and  the  other  States  from  that  sum 
down  to  $100,000.  The  aggregate  expenditures 
of  the  various  States  will,  therefore,  amount  to 
nearly  $6,000,000,  or,  with  the  National  appro- 
priation, nearly  $8,000,000.  Foreign  nations 
will  expend  from  $4,000,000  to  $5,000,000.  Vast 
sums  will  also  be  contributed  by  private  enter- 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  2J  7 

prise,  so  that  it  has  been  not  unreasonably  es- 
timated that  the  total  outlay  upon  the  Exhibi- 
tion will  be  somewhere  between  $35,000,000  and 
$40,000,000. 

How  much  money  will  be  expended  in  the  city 
of  Chicago,  at  the  hotels  and  elsewhere,  by  visit- 
ors ;  how  much  will  be  paid  for  railroad  trans- 
portation by  visitors  from  other  parts  of  the 
country,  and  how  much  money  will  be  brought 
into  and  spent  in  the  United  States  by  visitors 
from  abroad,  are  sums  that  can  be  dealt  with  only 
by  the  most  vivid  imagination.  Some  little  idea 
of  them  may  be  obtained  from  the  following  facts  : 
According  to  an  official  estimate  made  to  the 
Department  of  State  some  years  ago  by  a  United 
States  Consul  in  Germany,  the  annual  amount 
of  American  money  taken  to  Europe  by  Ameri- 
cans and  spent  there,  for  purposes  of  travel,  pleas- 
ure, art,  and  education  was  $105,000,000.  That 
was  a  number  of  years  ago.  The  present  annual 
average  is  probably  more  than  $125,000,000,  and 
it  has  been  reckoned  by  competent  judges  that 
in  1889,  owing  to  the  Paris  Exposition,  it  reached 
$200,000,000.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
a  very  considerable  return  tide  of  wealth  will,  in 
1893,  set  toward  the  American  shore. 

Some  comparison  with  the  World's  Fairs  pre- 
viously held  in  other  countries  may  be  of  inter- 
est at  this  point.  The  acreage  of  the  grounds 
of  various  Exhibitions,  has  been  as  follows ; 


218  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

London,  1851,  2i>£  ;  Paris,  1867,  87 ;  Vienna, 
1873,  280;  Philadelphia,  1876,  236;  Paris,  1889, 
173  ;  and  Chicago,  1893,  1,037.  The  number  of 
square  feet  under  the  roofs  of  the  buildings  are 
thus  stated:  London,  1851,  700,000;  Paris,  1867, 
3,371,904;  Philadelphia,  1876,  1,688,858;  Paris, 
1889,  1,000,000;  and  Chicago,  1893,  5,000,000. 
The  number  of  exhibitors  have  been  :  London, 
1851,  17,000;  Paris,  1867,  52,000;  Vienna,  1873, 
42,000;  Philadelphia,  1876,  30,864;  and  Paris, 
1889,  55,000.  The  number  of  days  on  which 
the  exhibitions  were  open,  were  :  London,  1851, 
144  ;  Paris,  1867,  217  ;  Vienna,  1873,  186;  Phila- 
delphia, 1876,  159  ;  Paris,  1889, 183,  and  Chicago, 
1893,  179  days.  The  number  of  admissions  in 
London  in  1851,  were  6,039,195;  Paris,  1867, 
10,200,000;  Vienna,  1873,  7,254,687;  Philadel- 
phia, 1876,  9,910,996,  and  Paris,  1889,  28,149,353. 
Finally  the  receipts  in  London,  in  1851,  were 
$1,780,000;  Paris,  1867,  $2,103,675;  Phila- 
delphia, 1876,  $3,813,724,  and  Paris,  1889, 
$8,300,000. 

A  recent  official  statement  of  the  dimensions 
of  the  various  buildings,  and  the  total  cost  of 
buildings  and  grounds,  under  the  direct  control 
of  the  Exposition  management,  together  with  the 
estimated  operating  expenses,  is  as  follows : 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION. 


219 


Dimensions  Area  in 


Buildings. 

in  feet.       acres. 

Cost. 

Mines  and  Mining,  . 

350x  700     5.6 

$26o,OOO 

Manufactures  and 

Liberal  Arts,  .... 

787x1687   30.5 

I,OOO,OOO 

Horticultural,  

25OXIOOO      5.8 

300,000 

Electricity,  

345x  700     5.5 

375,ooo 

Woman's,  

2Oox  400     1.8 

120,000 

Transportation,  .... 

250x  960     5.5 

280,000 

Administration,  .... 

26ox  260     1.6 

450,000 

Fish  and  Fisheries,  . 

i63x  363     1.4  ) 

200  ooo 

Annexes  (2),  .  .  .  . 

135  diam.       .8  j 

Agriculture,  

5oox  800     9.2 

540,000 

Annex,  
Assembly  Hall,  etc. 

328x  500     3.8  ) 
45ox  500     5.2  j 

200,000 

Machinery,  

50ox  800     9.8  ^ 

Annex,  

490x  551     6.2  > 

1,200,000 

Power  Horse,  

Sox  600     i.ij 

Fine  Arts,  
Annexes  (2),  .... 

320x  500     3.7) 

I2OX    2OO       I.I  j 

500,000 

Forestry,  

2OOX    500      2.3 

100,000 

Saw  Mill,  

i25x  300       .9 

35,000 

Dairy,  

95x  200       .5 

30,000 

Live  Stock  (2),  .  .  .  . 

53*  33°     i-3  1 

Sheds, 

40-0  j 

150,000 

Casino,  

i75x  300     1.2 

150,000 

144.8  | 

^5,890,060 

Grading,  filling,  etc., 
Landscape  gardening 

450,000 

121.4QO 

220  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Viaducts  and  bridges, $125,000 

Piers,    70,000 

Waterway  Improvements, 225,000 

Railways, 500,000 

Steam  plant, 800,000 

Electricity,    ,. 1,500,000 

Statuary  on  buildings,    100,000 

Vases,  lamps  and  posts,    50,000 

Seating, 8,000 

Water  supply,  sewerage,  etc, 600,000 

Improvement  of  lake  front,    200,000 

World's  Congress  auxiliary, 200,000 

Construction  department  expenses,  .  520,000 

Organization  and  administration,    .  .  3,308,563 

Operating  expenses,    1,550,000 

$16,420,053 

To  this  are  to  be  added  a  few  other  items, 
making  a  total  of  over  $17,000,000. 

The  site  chosen  for  the  Columbian  Exhibition 
is  a  truly  magnificent  one.  No  World's  Fair 
ever  had  one  surpassing  if  equalling  it.  It  em- 
braces Jackson  Park  and  Washington  Park,  and 
the  Midway  Plaisance,  a  strip  600  feet  wide  con- 
necting the  two  parks.  Jackson  Park,  where 
nearly  all  of  the  buildings  will  be,  is  beautifully 
situated  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Michigan,  having 
a  lake  frontage  of  two  miles  and  an  area  of  586 
acres.  Washington  Park  contains  371  acres, 
and  the  Midway  Plaisance,  80  acres.  Upon 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  221 

these  parks  previously  to  their  selection  for  the 
World's  Fair  site,  $4,000,000  was  spent  in  laying 
out  the  grounds  and  beautifying  them.  The 
Exhibition  company  will  spend  more  than 
$1,000,000  additional  for  similar  purposes.  These 
parks  are  connected  with  the  central  portion  of 
the  city  of  Chicago  and  with  the  general  park 
and  boulevard  system  by  more  than  35  miles  of 
boulevards  from  100  to  300  feet  in  width.  The 
Midway  Plaisance  is  a  popular  driveway  to  the 
upper  end  of  Jackson  Park,  and  is  a  broad  and 
spacious  avenue  richly  embellished  with  trees 
and  shrubs.  The  inclosed  portion  of  it  con- 
nected with  the  Exhibition  grounds  will  run  di- 
rectly eastward  and  throughout  its  entire  length 
will  present  some  of  the  most  picturesque  and 
novel  effects  of  the  whole  fair.  There  will  be  a 
u  Street  in  Constantinople,"  a  ''  Street  in  Cairo," 
and  other  reproductions  of  Old  World  scenes. 
There  will  be  a  most  graphic  reproduction  of  an 
American  Indian  camp,  showing  the  red  man  in 
his  natural  state.  Then  there  will  be  two  acres 
devoted  to  the  American  Indian  as  he  is  to  be  seen 
under  the  paternal  care  of  the  government. 
Types  of  all  the  leading  tribes  will  be  portrayed 
in  their  native  habitations  and  engaged  in  their 
characteristic  industries.  Thus  the  perspective 
along  the  Plaisance,  whether  viewed  from  the 
ground  or  from  an  elevation,  will  be  a  singularly 
attractive  one.  In  the  two  parks  hundreds  of 


222  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

thousands  of  trees  aud  shrubs  have  been  planted 
and  transplanted,  so  that  the  great  Exhibition 
will  have  such  a  setting  of  natural  beauty  as 
none  of  its  predecessors  ever  enjoyed. 

The  engineers  as  well  as  the  landscape 
gardeners  and  architects,  have  been  set  effec- 
tively to  work.  Twenty  miles  of  water  pipes 
have  been  laid  to  provide  a  supply  of  64,000,000 
gallons  daily.  For  supplying  power  to  machin- 
ery there  are  boilers  and  engines  of  25,000  horse- 
power and  for  generating  electricity,  18,000  horse- 
power ;  for  driving  small  independent  exhibits, 
2,000  horse-power,  for  pumps  2,000  horse-power 
and  for  compressed  air,  3,000  horse-power.  The 
lighting  of  the  grounds  and  buildings  will  require 
the  use  of  7,000  electric  arc  lights  and  100,000  in- 
candescent lamps.  Preparations  have  been  made 
for  disposing  of.  6,000,000  gallons  of  sewage 
every  24  hours.  Contracts  for  the  work  of 
construction  have  been  let  to  the  lowest  com- 
petent bidders  wherever  found.  They  have  thus 
been  awarded  in  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and 
Boston  ;  in  San  Francisco,  Seattle,  and  Omaha ; 
in  Minneapolis  and  Duluth  ;  in  Kansas  City  and 
St.  Louis ;  in  Leavenworth  and  Louisville  ;  in 
Milwaukee,  Detroit,  Cleveland,  and  Pittsburgh  ; 
in  Birmingham,  Alabama;  in  Wilmington, 
Delaware ;  in  Plainfield,  New  Jersey ;  in  Jack- 
son, Michigan ;  and  in  Stamford,  Connecticut. 
This  is  a  slight  indication  of  the  national  char- 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  223 

acter  of  the  work.  Its  international  character  is 
also  shown  by  the  awarding  of  contracts  in 
London,  Paris,  Berlin,  Rome,  Edinburgh,  Flor- 
ence, and  Constantinople. 

But  with  such  characteristic  energy  is  the 
work  of  construction  now  being  pushed  that  the 
completed  buildings  may  be  spoken  of  in  the 
present  rather  than  in  the  future  tense.  A  brief 
description  of  the  most  important  of  them  will 
not  come  here  amiss  : 

Ohe  of  the  finest  structures  on  the  Exhibition 
Grounds  is  the  Agricultural  Building,  as  befits 
the  foremost  agricultural  nation  on  the  globe.  It 
stands  near  the  shore  of  the  lake,  almost  sur- 
rounded by  the  lagoons.  The  style  of  archi- 
tecture is  classic  renaissance,  and  the  building  is 
500  by  800  feet  in  ground  area.  It  consists  of  a 
single  story,  with  a  cornice  line  65  feet  above 
the  ground.  Huge  Corinthian  pillars  flank  the 
main  entrance,  each  50  feet  high  and  5  feet  in 
diameter.  At  each  corner  and  from  the  centre 
of  the  building  rise  huge  pavilions,  that  at  the 
centre  being  144  feet  square.  The  four  corner 
pavilions  are  connected  by  curtains,  forming  a 
continuous  arcade  around  the  top  of  the  building. 
The  main  entrance  leads  through  an  opening  64 
feet  wide  into  a  vestibule,  and  thence  into  the 
rotunda,  100  feet  in  diameter,  surmounted  by  a 
glass  dome  130  feet  high.  The  corner  pavilions 
are  surmounted  by  domes  96  feet  high. 


224  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

At  the  south  side  of  the  Agricultural  Build- 
ing is  another  vast  structure,  devoted  principally 
to  a  Live  Stock  and  Agricultural  Assembly  Hall. 
This  is  to  be  the  common  meeting-point  for  all 
persons  interested  in  live  stock  and  agricultural 
pursuits.  This  building  contains  a  fine  lecture- 
room,  with  a  seating  capacity  of  about  1,500,  in 
which  lectures  will  be  delivered  and  conferences 
held  on  topics  connected  with  live  stock,  agri- 
culture, and  allied  industries. 

The  Forestry  Building  stands  near  the  Agri- 
cultural Building,  and  is  the  most  unique  of  all 
the  Exhibition  structures.  Its  ground  area  is 
200  by  500  feet.  On  all  four  sides  is  a  veranda, 
the  roof  of  which  is  supported  by  a  colonnade, 
each  column  of  which  consists  of  three  tree- 
trunks,  each  25  feet  long.  These  trunks  are  in 
their  natural  state,  with  the  bark  undisturbed. 
They  were  contributed  by  the  different  States 
and  Territories  of  the  Union,  and  by  various 
foreign  countries,  each  furnishing  specimens  of 
its  most  characteristic  trees.  The  walls  of  the 
building  are  covered  with  slabs  of  logs  with  the 
bark  removed.  The  roof  is  thatched  with  bark. 
Within,  the  building  is  finished  in  a  great 
variety  of  woods  so  treated  as  to  show,  to  the 
best  advantage,  their  graining,  their  colors,  their 
susceptibility  to  polish,  etc.  It  will  contain  a 
wonderful  exhibition  of  forest  products  in 
general,  doubtless  the  most  complete  ever  seen 


BEAR  PIT  (LINCOLN  PARK). 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  225 

in  the  world,  including  logs  and  sections  of 
trees,  worked  lumber  in  the  form  of  beams, 
planks,  shingles,  etc.,  dye-woods  and  barks, 
mosses,  gums,  resins,  vegetable  ivory,  rattan, 
willow-ware,  and  wooden-ware  generally,  etc. 
There  will  also  be  a  large  exhibit  of  saw-mill 
and  wood-working  machinery,  including  four 
complete  saw-mills,  which  will  be  seen  in  an 
annex  attached  to  the  Forestry  Building. 

Close  by  the  Forestry  Building  is  the  Dairy 
Building,  which  will  contain  not  only  a  com- 
plete exhibit  of  dairy  products,  but  also  a  dairy 
school,  in  Connection  with  which  will  be  con- 
ducted a  series  of  tests  for  determining  the  rela- 
tive merits  of  different  breeds  of  dairy  cattle  as 
producers  of  milk  and  butter.  This  structure 
stands  near  the  lake  shore  and  is  95  by  200  feet 
in  area,  and  two  stories  high.  On  the  first  floor, 
besides  office  headquarters,  there  is  a  large  room 
devoted  to  exhibits  of  butter,  and  further  back 
an  operating  room,  in  which  a  model  dairy  will 
be  conducted.  On  two  sides  of  this  room 
are  seats  for  400  spectators,  to  witness  the 
operations  of  the  model  dairy.  In  a  gallery 
about  this  room  will  be  the  exhibits  of  cheese. 

The  Horticultural  Building  stands  imme- 
diately south  of  the  entrance  to  Jackson  Park 
from  the  Midway  Plaisance,  facing  on  the  la- 
goon. Between  it  and  the  lagoon  is  a  terrace 
devoted  to  out-door  exhibits  of  flowers  and 

15 


226  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OK    THEE." 

plants,  including  large  tanks  for  various  lilies 
and  other  aquatic  plants.  The  building  is  1,000 
feet  long  and  250  feet  wide,  consisting  of  a 
central  pavilion  with  two  end  pavilions,  each  of 
the  latter  connected  with  the  central  one  by 
front  and  rear  curtains,  forming  two  interior 
courts,  each  88  by  270  feet.  These  courts  are 
planted  with  ornamental  shrubs  and  flowers. 
Over  the  central  pavilion  rises  a  glass  dome  187 
feet  in  diameter,  and  113  feet  high,  under  which 
will  be  exhibited  the  tallest  palms  and  tree  ferns 
that  can  be  procured.  The  building  will  be  de- 
voted to  exhibition  of  flowers,  plants,  vines, 
seeds,  horticultural  implements,  and  all  allied 
objects  and  industries. 

The  enormous  mining  industries  of  America, 
apart  from  those  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  would 
call  for  much  space  for  their  proper  accommo- 
dation. The  Hall  of  Mines  and  Mining  stands 
at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  western  lagoon, 
and  is  700  feet  long  by  350  wide.  Its  archi- 
tecture is  early  Italian  renaissance.  Within  it 
consists  of  a  single  story  surrounded  by  galleries 
60  feet  wide.  There  is  thus  a  huge  interior 
space  630  feet  long  and  230  feet  wide,  with  an 
extreme  height  of  TOO  feet  at  the  centre  and  40 
feet  at  the  sides.  It  is  spanned  by  a  steel  canti- 
lever roof,  abundantly  lighted  with  glass. 

The  Fine  Arts  Building  is  a  noble  specimen 
of  classic  Grecian  architecture.     Its  area  is  500 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  227 

by  320  feet,  divided  within  by  nave  and  transepts 
100  feet  wide  and  70  feet  high,  at  the  inter- 
section of  which  is  a  dome  60  feet  in  diameter. 
The  top  of  the  dome  is  125  feet  above  the 
ground,  and  is  surmounted  by  a  colossal  statue 
representing  a  Winged  Victory.  The  building 
is  beautifully  located  in  the  northern  part  of 
the  park,  the  south  front  facing  the  lagoon, 
from  which  it  is  separated  by  beautiful 
terraces,  ornamented  with  balustrades.  A 
huge  flight  of  steps  leads  from  the  main 
entrance  down  to  the  water's  edge.  The  north 
front  faces  a  wide  lawn  and  a  group  of  State 
buildings.  The  grounds  about  it  are  richly 
ornamented  with  groups  of  statues,  and  other 
artistic  works. 

The  great  development  in  late  years  of  elec- 
trical science  calls  for  a  large  building  in  which 
to  display  one  of  the  most  novel  and  brilliant  of 
all  the  exhibits  in  the  fair.  The  Electrical  Build- 
ing, 345  feet  wide  and  700  feet  long,  has  its  south 
front  on  the  great  Quadrangle,  its  north  front 
on  the  lagoon,  its  east  front  toward  the  Manu- 
factures Building,  and  its  west  front  toward  the 
Hall  of  Mines  and  Mining.  Its  plan  comprises 
a  longitudinal  nave  115  feet  wide  and  114  feet 
high,  with  a  central  transept  of  the  same  di- 
mensions. These  have  a  pitched  roof.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  building,  filling  the  external 
angles  of  the  nave  and  transept,  is  62  feet  high 


228  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

with  a  flat  roof.  The  outer  walls  are  composed 
of  a  continuous  series  of  Corinthian  pilasters 
resting  upon  a  stylobate,  and  supporting  a  mas- 
sive entablature.  At  the  centre  of  the  north 
side  is  a  pavilion  flanked  by  two  towers  195  feet 
high.  At  its  centre  is  a  huge  semicircular 
window,  above  which,  102  feet  from  the  ground, 
is  an  open  gallery  commanding  a  splendid  view 
of  the  lake  and  park.  At  the  south  side  is  a 
vast  niche  78  feet  wide  and  103  feet  high,  its 
opening  framed  by  a  semicircular  arch.  In  the 
centre  of  this  niche,  upon  a  lofty  pedestal,  is  a 
colossal  statue  of  Franklin.  The  east  and  west 
central  pavilions  are  composed  of  towers  168  feet 
high.  At  each  of  the  four  corners  of  the  build- 
ing is  a  pavilion  with  a  tower  169  feet  high. 
The  building  also  bears  54  lofty  masts,  from 
which  banners  will  be  displayed  by  day  and 
electric  lamps  at  night. 

The  Fisheries  Building  consists  of  a  large 
central  structure  with  two  smaller  polygonal 
buildings  connected  with  it  on  either  end  by 
arcades.  The  total  length  is  1,100  feet,  and  the 
width  200  feet.  In  the  central  portion  will  be 
the  general  fisheries  exhibit ;  in  one  of  the 
polygonal  buildings  the  angling  exhibit,  and  in 
the  other  the  aquaria.  The  external  architect- 
ure is  Spanish  Romanesque.  The  ingenuity  of 
the  architect  has  designed  after  fishes  and  other 
sea  forms  all  the  capitals,  medallions,  brackets, 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  229 

cornices,  and  other  ornamental  details.  The 
aquaria  will  contain  about  140,000  gallons  of 
water,  40,000  of  it  being  salt.  They  will  con- 
sist of  a  series  of  ten  tanks,  with  glass  fronts  to 
afford  an  easy  view  of  their  contents. 

The  contribution  of  the  United  States  Naval 
Department  is  one  of  the  most  novel  ever  seen 
at  any  World's  Fair.  It  is  comprised  in  a  struc- 
ture which,  to  all  outward  appearance,  is  one  of 
the  newest  and  most  powerful  ships  of  war. 
This  is,  however,  only  an  imitation  battle-ship, 
composed  of  masonry  and  resting  on  piling  in 
the  lake.  It  has  all  the  fittings  that  belong  to 
an  actual  ship,  such  as  guns,  turrets,  torpedo 
tubes,  nets  and  booms,  anchors,  chain  cables, 
davits,  awnings,  smoke-stacks,  a  military  mast, 
etc.,  together  with  all  appliances  for  working  the 
same.  Near  the  top  of  the  military  masts  are 
shelters  for  sharpshooters  in  which  are  mounted 
rapid  firing  guns.  The  battery  consists  of  four 
i3-iiich  breech  loading  rifles,  eight  8-inch  rifles, 
four  6-inch  rifles,  twenty  6-pounder  rapid  firing 
guns,  six  i-pound  rapid  firing  guns,  two  Catling 
guns,  and  six  torpedo  tubes.  These  are  all 
placed  and  mounted  exactly  as  in  a  genuine 
battle-ship.  All  along  the  starboard  side  is  a 
torpedo  protection  net.  The  entire  structure  is 
348  feet  long  and  69  feet  3  inches  wide.  It  will 
be  manned  during  the  Exhibition  by  officers  and 
men  detailed  by  the  Navy  Department  who  will 


230  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

give  boat,  torpedo,  and  gun  drills  and  maintain 
the  discipline  and  mode  of  life  to  be  observed  on 
the  real  vessels  of  the  Navy. 

The  Woman's  Building,  which  was  fittingly 
designed  by  a  woman,  is  architecturally  one  of 
the  most  attractive.  It  is  encompassed  by  lux- 
uriant shrubbery  and  beds  of  flowers  with  a 
background  of  stately  forest  trees,  and  faces  the 
great  lagoon.  Between  the  building  and  the 
lagoon  are  two  terraces  ornamented  with  balus- 
trades and  crossed  by  splendid  flights  of  steps. 
The  principal  facade  of  the  building  is  400  feet 
long  and  the  depth  of  the  building  is  200  feet. 
The  architecture  is  Italian  renaissance.  The 
main  grouping  consists  of  a  centre  pavilion, 
flanked  at  each  end  by  corner  pavilions,  con- 
nected in  the  first  story  by  open  arcades  in  the 
curtains,  forming  a  shaded  promenade  extending 
the  whole  length  of  the  building.  The  structure 
throughout  is  two  stories  high,  with  a  total  ele- 
vation of  60  feet.  At  the  centre  is  a  fine 
rotunda,  65  by  70  feet,  crowned  with  a  richly 
ornamented  skylight.  The  building  contains  a 
model  hospital,  a  model  kindergarten,  a  model 
kitchen,  a  library,  refreshment  rooms,  a  great 
assembly  room,  and  other  departments  for  dis- 
playing the  varied  industries  in  which  women 
are  especially  interested. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  describe  in  detail  the 
architectural  features  or  the  marvellous  contents 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  231 

of  the  great  Machinery  Hall.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  splendid  structures  on  the  grounds,  measur- 
ing 850  by  500  feet  in  ground  area,  and  standing 
at  the  extreme  south  end  of  the  Park,  just  south 
of  the  Administration  Building,  and  west  from  the 
Agricultural  Building,  from  which  it  is  sepa- 
rated by  a  lagoon.  The  general  design  of  its 
interior  is  that  of  three  enormous  railroad  train 
houses  side  by  side,  each  spanned  by  trussed 
arches,  and  surrounded  on  all  four  sides  by  a 
gallery,  50  feet  wide.  The  bulk  of  the  machinery 
exhibited  will  be  placed  in  this  edifice  and  its 
large  annex. 

The  building  devoted  to  displays  of  Manu- 
factures and  Liberals  Arts  is  the  largest  of  all. 
Its  ground  area  measures  1,687  by  787  feet,  or 
nearly  3 1  acres.  Within  a  gallery  50  feet  wide 
extends  around  all  the  four  sides,  and  projecting 
from  this  are  86  smaller  galleries,  12  feet  wide. 
These  are  reached  from  the  main  floor  by  30 
staircases,  each  12  feet  wide.  An  aisle  50  feet 
wide,  called  Columbia  Avenue,  extends  from  end 
to  end  of  the  building,  and  a  transept  of  similar 
width  crosses  it  at  the  centre.  The  main  roof  is  of 
iron  and  glass,  and  its  ridge  pole  is  1 50  feet  from 
the  ground.  It  covers  an  area  1,400  by  385  feet. 
The  actual  floor  space  of  the  building,  includ- 
ing galleries,  is  about  40  acres.  The  general 
style  of  architecture  is  Corinthian,  with  almost 
endless  arrays  of  columns  and  arches.  There 


232  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

are  four  great  entrances,  one  in  the  centre  of  each 
facade.  These  have  the  appearance  of  triumphal 
arches,  the  central  opening  of  each  being  40  feet 
wide  and  80  feet  high.  Above  each  is  a  great 
attic  story,  ornamented  with  sculptured  eagles  1 8 
feet  high.  At  each  corner  of  the  building  is  a 
pavilion  with  huge  arched  entrances  correspond- 
ing in  design  with  the  principal  portals  of  the 
building.  This  stately  edifice  faces  the  lake, 
with  only  lawns  and  promenades  between  it  and 
the  water.  North  of  it  is  the  United  States 
Government  Building,  south  of  it  the  harbor  and 
•injuttiug  lagoon,  and  west  of  it  the  Electrical 
Building  and  the  lagoon  separating  it  from  the 
great  island. 

The  Transportation  exhibit  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  the  whole  display,  and  is  housed 
in  a  huge  Romanesque  building,  standing  between 
the  Horticultural  and  Mining  Buildings.  It  faces 
the  east  and  commands  a  fine  view  of  the  lagoon 
and  great  island.  Its  area  measures  960  by  250 
•feet,  besides  a  vast  annex  covering  9  acres  more. 
The  principal  entrance  to  the  building  is  through 
a  huge  arch,  very  richly  decorated.  Within  the 
building  is  treated  after  the  manner  of  a  Roman 
Basilica,  with  broad  nave  and  aisles.  At  the 
centre  is  a  cupola  rising  165  feet  above  the  ground, 
and  reached  by  eight  elevators.  The  exhibits  in 
this  building  and  its  annex  will  comprise  every- 
thing pertaining  to  transportation,  including  all 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  233 

manner  of  railroad  engines  and  cars,  steamboats 
and  other  vessels,  coaches,  cabs  and  carriage 
balloons  and  carrier  pigeons,  bicycles  and  baby 
carriages,  cash  conveyors  for  stores,  pneumatic 
tubes,  passenger  and  freight  elevators,  etc. 

The  United  States  Government  Building  stands 
near  the  lake  shore1  south  of  the  main  lagoon. 
Its  architecture  is  classic,  resembling  the  National 
Museum  and  other  Government  Buildings  at 
Washington.  It  is  made  of  iron,  brick,  and  glass 
and  measures  350  by  420  feet.  At  the  centre  is 
an  octagonal  dome,  120  feet  in  diameter  and  150 
feet  high.  The  south  half  of  the  building  is 
devoted  to  exhibits  of  the  Post  Office,  Treasury, 
War,  and  Agricultural  Departments.  The  north 
half  is  given  up  to  the  Interior  Department,  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  and  the  Fisheries  Corn- 
mission.  The  State  Department  exhibit  is 
between  the  rotunda  and  the  east,  and  the 
Department  of  Justice  between  the  rotunda  and 
the  west  end.  The  rotunda  itself  will  be  kept 
clear  of  all  exhibits. 

The  gem  of  all  the  buildings  is  that  occupied  by 
the  Administration  of  the  Exhibition.  It  stands 
at  the  west  end  of  the  great  court,  looking  east- 
ward, just  in  front  of  the  railroad  stations.  It 
covers  an  area  260  feet  square  and  consists  of  four 
pavilions,  each  84  feet  square,  connected  by  a 
vast  central  dome  120  feet  in  diameter  and  220 
feet  high,  leaving  at  the  centre  of  each  facade 


234  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

a  recess  of  82  feet  wide  within  which  are 
the  grand  entrance  to  the  building.  The 
general  design  is  in  the  style  of  the  French 
renaissance.  The  first  story  is  Doric,  of  heroic 
proportions,  and  the  second  Ionic.  The  four 
great  entrances  are  each  50  feet  wide  and  50  feet 
high,  deeply  recessed  and  covered  by  semicircu- 
lar arches.  The  great  dome,  which  will  be  one 
of  the  most  striking  features  in  the  landscape  of 
the  Exhibition,  is  richly  gilded  externally. 
Within  it  is  decorated  with  a  profusion  of  sculp- 
ture and  paintings. 

The  Illinois  State  Building  is  naturally  by  far 
the  finest  of  all  the  structures  erected  by  the 
various  States  of  the  Union.  It  stands  on  a  high 
terrace  in  one  of  the  choicest  parts  of  Jackson 
Park,  commanding  a  splendid  view  of  the  grounds. 
It  is  450  feet  long  and  160  feet  wide.  At  the 
north  Memorial  Hall  forms  a  wing  50  by  75 
feet.  At  the  south  is  another  wing,  75  by  123 
feet,  three  stories  high,  containing  the  executive 
offices  and  two  large  public  halls.  Surmounting 
the  central  portion  of  the  building  is  a  fine  dome 
72  feet  in  diameter  and  235  feet  high.  The 
entire  edifice  is  constructed,  almost  exclusively, 
of  wood,  stone,  brick,  and  steel  produced  by  the 
State  of  Illinois. 

No  sketch  of  the  Columbian  Exhibition  would 
be  complete  without  some  mention  of  its  prin- 
cipal projectors  and  managers.  The  President 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION. 


235 


of  the  World's  Fair  Columbian  Commission  is 
Thomas  Wetherill  Palmer,  who  was  born  at 
Detroit,  Michigan,  on  June  25th,  1830.  He  is 
of  New  England  descent  and  his  parents  were 
among  the  early  settlers  in  Michigan.  Mr. 
Palmer  was  educated  at  St.  Clair  College  and 
the  University  of  Michigan,  and  after  his  col- 
lege days  made  a 
long  pedestrian 
tour  through 
Spain,  thus  be- 
coming familiar 
with  the  country 
to  which 


After 
of 


GEN.  THOS.   W.    PALMER,   PRESIDENT    NA- 
TIONAL COMMISSION,  WORLD'S  COL- 
UMBIAN EXPOSITION. 


he  was 

afterward  sent  as 
United  States 
Minister, 
some  years 
prosperous  mer- 
cantile life  in 
Detroit,  and  hon- 
orable participa- 
tion in  State  politics  he  was  elected  United  States 
Senator  and  served  six  years.  In  1889  he  was 
made  Minister  to  Spain.  At  the  first  meeting 
of  the  World's  Fair  Columbian  Commission, 
held  in  Chicago  on  June  26th,  1890,  he  was 
unanimously  elected  President  and  at  once  en- 
tered upon  the  duties  of  the  office. 

Women  and  their  work  will  be  more  conspicu- 


236 


MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE.'' 


ously  represented  at  this  Exhibition  than  at  any 
of  its  predecessors,  and  there  has  therefore 
fittingly  been  formed  a  Board  of  Lady  Managers. 
At  its  first  session,  on  November  aoth,  1890, 
Mrs.  Potter  Palmer,  of  Chicago,  was  unanimously 
elected  President.  She  was  born  at  Louisville, 

Kentucky,  her 
maiden  name 
being  Bertha 
Honore,  and  she 
was  educated  at 
Louisville  and 
Baltimore, 
Maryland.  She 
was  married  in 
1871  to  Potter 
Palmer,  one  of 
the  foremost 
business  men 
of  Chicago,  and 
has  since  been 


MRS.  POTTER  PALMER,  PRESIDENT  OF  WOMAN'S 
NATIONAL  COMMISSION. 


one  of  the  most 


prominent    and 

most  admired  leaders  of  society  in  that  city, 
besides  being  identified  with  innumerable 
benevolent  and  educational  enterprises. 

The  Director-General  of  the  Exhibition,  its 
chief  executive  officer,  upon  whom  the  real  re- 
sponsibility for  the  conduct  of  the  World's  Fair 
rests,  is  Col.  George  R.  Davis,  of  Chicago.  He 


THE   COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION. 


237 


was  born  in  Massachusetts  in  1840,  and  was 
educated  in  the  schools  of  that  State.  Early 
in  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  he  became  a  vol- 
unteer in  the  Union  Army  and  served  through 
the  entire  struggle  with  great  distinction.  In 
1871  he  retired  from  military  service  and  en- 
tered business  life  in  Chicago,  where  he  was 
eminently 
successful. 
In  1878  he 
was  elected  to 
Congress  and 
was  re-elected 
in  1880  and 
1882,  and  in 
the  fall  ot 
1886  he  was 
elected  Treas- 
urer of  Cook 
County,  Illi- 

15 '^  HON.  GEORGE    R.   DAVIS,   DIRECTOR-GENERAL  OF 

eludes  the  city  THE  WORLD'S  COLUMBIAN  EXPOSITION. 

of  Chicago. 

The  President  of  the  Directory  of  the  World's 
Columbian  Exhibition  is  W.  T.  Baker,  a  promi- 
nent commission  merchant  of  Chicago,  who 
was  born  in  New  York  State  in  1841.  He  has 
been  elected  and  re-elected  President  of  the 
Chicago  Board  of  Trade. 
'  Benjamin  Butterworth,  of  Ohio,  was  chosen 


238 


"  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 


Secretary  of  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition. 
He  has  for  years  been  known  as  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  men  in  the  National  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives at  Washington.  During  the  debate 
in  Congress  on  the  question  of  an  appropriation 
for  the  National  Fair  Commission  he  spoke 
strongly  in  favor  of  such  an  appropriation,  and 

it  was  owing 
chiefly  to  his  ef- 
forts that  it  was 
finally  passed. 

The  Hon. 
John  T.  Dickin- 
son, Secretary 
of  the  World's 
Columbian 
Com  miss  ion, 
was  born  in 
1858,  at  Hous- 
ton, Texas,  and 
has  for  some 
years  been  a 
conspicuous 
lawyer,  editor,  and  politician  in  that  State. 

The  head  of  the  Department  of  Publicity  and 
Promotion  of  the  Exhibition  is  Major  Moses  T. 
Handy,  one  of  the  best  known  newspaper  men 
in  the  United  States.  He  was  born  in  Missouri 
in  1847,  and  was  educated  in  Virginia,  and  has 
had  a  brilliant  career  as  a  journalist  on  the  staffs 


PRESIDENT  W.  T.   BAKER,  OP    THE  WORLD'S 
COLUMBIAN   EXPOSITION. 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  239 

of  the  Richmond  Dispatch,  Richmond  Inquirer, 
New  York  Tribune,  Philadelphia  Times,  Phila- 
delphia Press,  and  Philadelphia  News. 

The  Exhibition  is  to  be  formally  dedicated 
with  appropriate  ceremonies  on  October  i2th, 
1892,  being  the  4ooth  anniversary  of  the  land- 
ing of  Columbus.  It  will  not  be  opened  to  the 
public,  however,  for  the  general  purposes  of  the 
Exhibition  until  May  ist,  1893,  and  it  will  con- 
tinue open  from  that  day  until  October  3Oth,  1893. 
During  its  progress  there  will  be  held  on  its 
grounds  and  in  its  buildings  innumerable  conven- 
tions and  festivals  of  national  and  international 
interest,  and  it  will  doubtless  be  a  more  truly  uni- 
versal exhibition  than  any  that  has  yet  been 
held  in  the  world.  The  spirit  animating  the 
projectors  of  the  enterprise  cannot  perhaps  be 
better  expressed  than  they  were  by  President 
Palmer  in  his  eloquent  address  before  the  Col- 
umbian Commission  in  Chicago,  on  June  26th, 
1890.  "  Education,"  he  said,  "  is  the  chief  safe- 
guard for  the  future ;  not  education  through 
books  alone,  but  through  the  commingling  of  our 
people  from  East,  West,  North,  and  South,  from 
farm  and  factory.  Such  great  convocations  as 
that  of  our  projected  fair  are  the  schools  where- 
in our  people  shall  touch  elbows,  and  the 
men  and  women  from  Maine  and  Texas,  from 
Washington  and  South  Carolina  learn  to  realize 
that  all  are  of  one  blood,  speak  the  same  Ian- 


240  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OP  THKE." 

guage,  worship  one  God,  and  salute  the  same 
flag. 

"If  we  are  to  remain  a  free  people,  if  the 
States  are  to  retain  their  autonomy,  if  we  are  to 
take  a  common  pride  in  the  name  of  American, 
if  we  are  to  avoid  the  catastrophe  of  former 
years  Americans  must  commingle,  be  brought  in 
contact,  and  acquire  that  mutual  sympathy  that 
is  essential  in  a  harmonious  family.  Isolated, 
independent  travel  may  do  this,  but  not  to  any 
such  extent  as  will  be  accomplished  b}'  gather- 
ings like  this,  where  millions  will  concentrate 
to  consult  and  compare  the  achievements  of  each 
other,  and  of  those  from  across  the  sea.  All 
must  have  observed  the  effect  of  the  Centennial 
Exhibition  in  educating  even  what  are  called 
educated  people,  and  in  the  impetus  derived 
therefrom.  It  gave  to  all  a  larger  outlook,  it 
repressed  egotism,  quickened  sympathies,  and 
set  us  to  thinking. 

"  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  '  Industrial 
Expositions  are  the  mile-stones  of  progress,  the 
measure  of  the  dimensions  of  the  productive 
activity  of  the  human  race.  They  cultivate 
taste,  they  bring  nations  closer  to  one  another, 
and  thus  promote  civilization,  they  awaken  new 
wants  and  lead  to  an  increased  demand,  they  con- 
tribute to  a  taste  for  art,  and  thus  encourage  the 
genius  of  artists.' 

"  And  this  is  civilization — a  process  by  which 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  241. 

the  citizens  of  each  State,  foreign  as  well  as 
domestic,  will  learn  their  inter-dependence  upon 
each  other.  Many  will  come  from  selfish  motives, 
possibly,  but  the  social  atmosphere  they  will 
here  breathe  ;  that  undefinable  influence  which 
pervades  and  affects  people  who  come  together 
in  masses  with  a  common  purpose,  will  broaden 
them  and  teach  them  that  discussion  and  not 
violence  is  the  proper  way  to  adjust  differences  or 
promote  objects — and  thus  prepare  humanity  for 
that  good  time  so  long  coming. 

"  The  world  will  come  to  us,  by  its  represen- 
tatives, if  not  en  masse,  and  our  own  people 
should  be  drawn  to  this  great  school  of  the  citizen 
by  every  device  which  can  be  imagined  and 
afforded,  while  it  remains  for  all  connected  with 
this  management  to  see  that  no  just  expectation 
shall  be  disappointed. 

"  In  other  times  there  were  convocations  where 
the  spirit  of  rivalry  and  comparison  appeared, 
but  in  them  few  were  invited  to  participate,  and 
only  a  limited  number  of  spectators  could  afford 
to  attend.  In  those  tournaments  muscle  was  of 
more  importance  than  mind.  Those  exhibitions 
taught  how  to  destroy,  and  not  how  to  create. 
The  rivalry  now  is  in  methods  to  create  and  not 
to  destroy,  and  the  knights  who  participate  are 
those  of  the  active  brain  and  cunning  hand, 
whose  spectators  and  judges  are  the  better  be- 
haved and  better  educated  citizens  of  to-day. 

16 


242  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE. 

"This  Exposition — on  a  new  site,  in  a  new 
world — assumes  greater  dimensions  than  a  mar- 
ket for  merchandise  or  than  figures  of  finance. 
We  should  make  it  a  congress  of  the  nations 
wherein  agriculture,manufactures,  and  commerce 
should  be  the  handmaids  of  ideas — where  art 
should  paint  the  allegory  of  Peace  and  chisel  the 
statue  Fraternity — where  music  should  play  a 
dirge  to  dead  hastes  and  an  epithalamium  on  the 
marriage  of  the  nations. 

"  Our  country  has  led  the  advance  in  peaceful 
arbitration.  The  Geneva  Commission,  the  Fish- 
eries Commission  in  the  settlement  of  difficulties 
already  existing,  the  Pan-American  Congress 
has  opened  the  way  for  the  peaceful  settlement 
of  questions  that  may  arise  hereafter  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  hemisphere.  I  regard  these  great 
achievements  of  our  capital  government  as  more 
illustrious  than  any  act  of  any  government  since 
our  great  Civil  War. 

"  Let  the  Exposition  be  fruitful  in  profit,  not 
only  to  the  exhibitors,  but  to  all  comers,  and  that 
they  shall  carry  away  a  higher  conception  of  the 
duty  of  the  citizen  and  the  mission  of  the  State. 
Our  material  power  is  very  great,  too  great  for 
us  to  act  on  any  other  plane  than  the  highest. 
Our  resources  and  capacity  to  meet  our  financial 
obligations  are  a  wonder  to  the  powers  of  the  old 
world.  It  should  be  our  aim  to  make  our  moral 
altitude  on  all  public  questions,  national  or  inter- 


THE   COLUMBIAN   EXHIBITION.  243 

national,  as  unassailable  as  our  monetary  credit. 
Our  bonds  are  higher  in  the  markets  of  the  world 
than  any  other — our  opinions  and  acts  should, 
relatively,  hold  as  high  a  place. 

"  The  first  400  years  have  passed — they  have 
been  illuminated  by  the  heroic  deeds  of  men  and 
women,  and  shaded  by  crimes,  national  and  in- 
dividual. The  descendants  of  the  Puritans  and 
.Cavalier,  of  the  Huguenot  and  the  Catholic,  of 
the  slave  and  the  Indian,  together  with  those 
from  other  continents  and  the  isles  of  the  sea 
meet  in  peaceful  rivalry  where  the  forest  fades 
away  and  the  prairie  expands. 

"  At  last  we  are  a  nation  with  common  in- 
heritance. Lexington  and  Yorktown,  Bunker 
Hill  and  Eutaw,  Saratoga  and  Guildford  Court 
House,  New  Orleans  and  Plattsburg,  are  our 
common  glory. 

"  We  have  people  to  the  north  and  south  who 
can  be  linked  to  us  with  hooks  of  steel  if  we 
continue  to  retain  their  respect  and  confidence. 
I  want  no  forcible  addition  to  our  territory,  were 
it  practicable.  I  want  them  to  come  as  a  bride 
comes  to  her  husband — in  love  and  confidence — 
and  because  they  wish  to  link  their  fortunes 
with  ours,  to  make  their  daily  walk  by  our  side. 
To  bring  about  this  consummation  will  be  the 
work  of  time,  of  forbearance,  of  rigid  obser- 
vance of  their  rights,  of  due  regard  for  their 
prejudices,  of  an  unselfish  desire  for  welfare — 


244  "  MY   COUNTRY,  VlS   OF  THEE." 

wherein  all  the  amenities  of  life  shall  be  culti- 
vated. We  must  enforce  their  respect  by  order 
at  our  own  home,  and  show  them  that  our  com- 
posite civilization — wherein  we  select  all  that  is 
good  from  abroad,  and  retain  all  that  is  good  in 
our  own,  is  calculated  to  make  them  also  happier 
and  greater. 

"  Should  this  occasion,  this  National  Expo- 
sition, promote  such  a  purpose  as  if  we  are 
rightly  inspired,  this  meeting  of  all  people  would 
be  more  than  a  financial  success — more  than  a 
vain  commercial  triumph.  It  would  emphasize 
the  new  era,  which  I  hope  is  dawning,  and  take 
the  initiative  in  what  may  result  in  the  federation 
of  this  hemisphere." 

Thus  the  Columbian  Exhibition  will  nobly 
close  the  first  four  centuries  of  American  history, 
and.  by  the  splendor  of  its  display  shed  brilliant 
rays  upon  the  unknown  years  and  centuries  to 
come.  The  future  must  be  estimated  from  the 
past  and  the  present.  As  the  present  is  grander 
than  the  past,  so,  may  we  hope,  will  the  future 
be  grander  than  the  present. 

Mr.  Chauncey  M.  Depew  has  drawn  this  com- 
parison most  graphically. 

"  At  the  time  of  the  Centennial  Exhibition  we 
had  45,000,000  people  ;  now  our  numbers  reach 
the  grand  total  of  64,000,000.  Then  we  had 
thirty-seven  States,  but  we  have  since  added  seven 
stars  to  our  flag.  Then  the  product  of  our  farms 


THE  COLUMBIAN    EXHIBITION.  245 

in  cereals  was  about  $2,200,000,000 ;  now  it  is 
over  $4,000,000,000.  Then  the  output  of  our 
factories  was  about  $5,000,000,000 ;  now  it  is  over 
$7,000,000,000.  Such  progress,  such  develop- 
ment, such  advance,  such  accumulation  of  wheat 
and  the  opportunities  for  wealth — wealth  in  the 
broad  sense,  which  opens  new  avenues  for  em- 
ployment and  fresh  chances  for  independence 
and  for  homes — have  characterized  no  other 
similar  period  of  recorded  time. 

"  The  Columbian  World's  Exposition  will  be 
international  because  it  will  hospitably  welcome 
and  entertain  the  people  and  the  products  of 
every  nation  in  the  world.  It  will  give  to  them 
the  fullest  opportunity  to  teach  us,  and  learn 
from  us,  and  to  open  new  avenues  of  trade  with 
our  markets,  and  discover  materials  which  will 
be  valuable  in  theirs.  But  its  creation,  its 
magnitude,  its  location,  its  architecture,  and  its 
striking  and  enduring  features  will  be  American. 
The  city  in  which  it  is  held,  taking  rank  among 
the  first  cities  in  the  world  after  an  existence  of 
only  fifty  years,  is  American.  The  great  inland 
fresh-water  sea,  whose  waves  will  dash  against 
the  shores  of  Jackson  Park  is  American.  The 
prairie,  extending  westward  with  its  thousands 
of  square  miles  of  land,  a  half  century  ago  a 
wilderness,  but  to-day  gridironed  with  railroads, 
spanned  with,  webs  of  electric  wires,  rich  in 
prosperous  farms,  growing  villages,  ambitious 


246  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

cities,  and  an  energetic,  educated,  and  progressive 
people  is  purely  American. 

"The  Centennial  Exhibition  of  1876  cele- 
brated the  first  hundred  years  of  independence  of 
the  Republic  of  the  United  States.  The  Colum- 
bian Exhibition  celebrates  the  discovery  of  a 
continent  which  has  become  the  home  of  peoples 
of  every  race,  the  refuge  for  those  persecuted  on 
account  of  their  devotion  to  civil  and  religious  ' 
liberty,  and  the  revolutionary  factor  in  the  affairs 
of  this  earth,  a  discovery  which  has  accomplished 
more  for  humanity  in  its  material,  its  intellec- 
tual, and  its  spiritual  aspects  than  all  other  events 
since  the  advent  of  Christ." 


CHAPTER  VI. 
SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE. 

THERE  ought  to  be  a  radical  change  in  mar- 
riage customs  in  the  United  States,  if  we  would 
avoid  a  terrible  deterioration  of  social  life. 

In  the  early  days  of  our  country,  when  most 
of  the  inhabitants  were  representatives  of  the 
classes  which  have  supplied  populations  for  all 
new  countries,  marriage,  as  among  the  lower 
order  of  peasantry  everywhere  etse  in  the  world, 
and  among  the  savages  besides,  was  a  mere  mat- 
ing of  male  and  female.  Women  were  brought 
over  by  shiploads  to  be  disposed  of,  as  wives,  to 
the  earlier  Virginia  planters ;  no  stories  have 
come  down  to  us  of  cruelties  or  mismatings,  yet 
the  transactions  were  as  plainly  a  matter  of  pur- 
chase and  sale  as  any  in  the  subsequent  trade  in 
black  slaves.  The  rapid  settlement  of  the  country, 
the  improvement  in  civilization,  which  has^come 
through  the  multiplication  of  large  villages  and 
of  cities,  the  general  facilities  for  obtaining  edu- 
cation, such  as  exist  in  no  other  country,  have 

247 


248  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THE£." 

made  ours  the  laud  above  all  others  in  which 
generations  may  rise  rapidly  from  the  social  posi- 
tion of  their  ancestors.  Consequently  there  is  no 
part  of  the  world  in  which  the  marriage  relation 
should  be  so  closely  guarded  as  here. 

Does  this  seem  over  particular,  in  this  land  of 
freedom  and  era  of  emancipation  from  narrow 
views  ?  Then  look  carefully  over  a  list  of  the 
richest  and  most  influential  men  who  have  come 
to  the  front  within  the  past  few  years,  particu- 
larly in  the  newer  States ;  regard  their  marital 
relations — this  will  do  no  harm  to  any  of  them 
who  are  respectable — and  consider  the  nature  of 
the  influence  which  these  people  exert  upon 
society  around  them.  The  subject  is  not  easy  or 
pleasant  to  discuss,  but,  fortunately,  there  are  not 

many   people  who  cannot  discuss  it  for  them- 

,  • 

selves. 

To  expect  to  bring  about  the  desired  change 
by  religious  means,  which  are  the  first  to  sug- 
gest themselves  either  to  the  Christian  or  the 
philosopher,  is  impossible.  However  desirable  it 
may  be  our  political  system  has  made  it  impossible 
for  us  as  a  body  of  people  to  go  back  to  the  customs 
of  a  period  which  was  superior  to  ours  in  regard 
to  the  sanctity  of  marriage  relations.  However 
muclr  these  relations  may  be  regarded  as  sac 
raments  by  some,  and  as  specially  sanctified  b} 
others,  the  making  of  the  marriage  relation  a 
matter  of  mere  civil  contract  has  become  so  gen- 


SOCIETY'S   FOUNDATION-STONE.  249 

erally  a  fact  in  law  that  it  is  impossible  any 
longer  to  expect  the  majority  of  people  to  abide  by 
the  precedents  and  customs  of  different  churches. 
The  fact  is,  the  churches  don't  do  it  themselves. 
Divorced  people  who  have  no  moral  right  to  re- 
marry are  continually  taking  new  partners  and 
ministers  are  performing  the  ceremony. 

The  danger,  aside  from  easy  divorce,  of  which 
more  anon,  is  in  the  probable  change  of  social 
condition  of  the  contracting  parties.  Men  and 
women,  mating  in  their  very  early  years,  as  is 
the  custom  in  all  small  villages  and  agricultural 
districts,  frequently  find  themselves,  by  some 
happy  accident,  raised  to  a  higher  degree  of  finan- 
cial standing  than  they  had  expected,  and  in  the 
newer  portions  of  the  country,  which  contain 
a  large  majority  of  our  population,  such  change 
of  material  condition  carries  social  importance 
and  influence  with  it.  As  would  be  the  case  any- 
where else  in  the  world,  the  change  of  condition 
shows  itself  differently  in  man  and  woman.  The 
man  of  means  quickly  finds  himself  a  man  of 
mark  among  his  fellows,  and  rapidly  receives  a 
vast  amount  of  that  valuable  education  which 
comes  from  what  some  philosopher  has  called  "  the 
attrition  of  minds."  His  wife,  relieved  of  the 
drudgery  which  is  almost  inseparable  from  pov- 
erty, does  not  follow  her  husband  intellectually, 
unless  such  is  her  natural  bent.  She  consequently 
devotes  her  leisure  and  improved  material  condi- 


250-       "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE."    . 

tion  to  luxury  and  to  show.  From  this  difference 
of  conditions  in  a  family  which  was  once  united 
can  be  found  the  basis  of  many  thousands  of 
divorce  suits. 

You  take  exception  to  the  expression  "intel- 
lectual ?  "  You  are  wrong.  I  know  it  is  the  fash- 
ion to  regard  literature,  law,  theology  and  other 
so-called  learned  professions  as  sole  possessors 
of  the  world's  intellect,  but  this  is  all  nonsense. 
It  requires  just  as  much  intellect — intellect  of 
just  as  high  order — to  put  a  railroad  through 
a  new  country,  or  to  invent  a  new  threshing 
machine,  or  to  manage  a  turbulent  town-meeting, 
or  to  work  a  bill  through  the  Legislature,  as  to 
write  a  poem,  sermon,  or  novel,  or  to  plead  a  case 
in  court.  Edison  and  Ericsson  are  as  much  men 
of  intellect  as  Longfellow  or  Lowell ;  the  differ- 
ence in  their  lives  is  one  of  taste  and  detail — 
not  of  brain  and  intellectual  endeavor.  The  posi- 
tion in  which  money  places  a  man  anywhere,  ex- 
cept in  the  large  cities — and  it  isn't  safe  to  except 
these  much — compels  him  to  use  his  intellect  a 
great  deal,  and  to  sharpen  it  frequently  Unless 
his  wife  is  his  partner  in  every  sense  of  the  word, 
she  is  going  to  be  left  behind.  That  is  not  the 
worst  of  it ;  there  are  plenty  of  bright  women 
lying  in  wait  for  the  man  who  has  plenty  of 
money  and  a  stupid  wife. 

Among  those  not  yet  married  the  same  danger 
is  ever  apparent.  Men  have  always  been  guided 


SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE.  251 

more  by  impulse  than  reason  in  the  selection  of 
their  mates,  and  to  this  day  philosophers  often 
marry  fools.  Consequently  it  is  not  surprising 
that  young  men  of  strong  natural  intelligence 
and  great  energy,  who  nevertheless  have  not 
yet  received  their  fair  start  in  life  or  developed 
their  powers  to  the  uttermost,  select  their  brides 
through  some  mere  fancy  or  caprice,  which  might 
never  lead  to  bad  results  were  their  condition  in 
life  always  to  remain  as  it  was  in  the  beginning. 
But  the  reports  of  hundreds  of  divorce  cases, 
which  have  amused  the  public  to  some  extent, 
disgusted  it  still  more,  and  horrified  the  thinking 
portion,  show  that  alleged  incompatibilities  are 
generally  the  results  of  changes  of  condition, 
which  have  caused  husband  and  wife  to  drift 
apart  for  reasons  not  at  all  related  to  the  conjugal 
state. 

It  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  the  churches 
would  give  the  subject  special  attention,  the 
world's  morality  being  more  dependent  upon 
proper  marriage  than  all  other  influences  com- 
bined, religion  itself  not  excepted.  Well,  the 
church  does  something  in  this  direction.  It  does 
a  great  deal,  but  not  one-thousandth  part  of  what 
is  necessary.  A  pastor  of  no  matter  what  de- 
nomination gladly  welcomes  the  opportunity, 
which,  nevertheless,  is  seldom  made  by  himself, 
to  urge  upon  young  people  the  seriousness  of  the 
marriage  relation,  the  necessity  of  affection,  con- 


252        "MY  COUNTRY,  TTIS  OF  THEE." 

stancy  and  forbearance,  and  to  show  them  to  the 
best  of  his  ability  glowing  pictures  of  the  final 
results  of  conjugal  faithfulness.  But  constant 
warnings,  such  as  are  given  against  a  great  many 
sins  of  less  serious  influence  upon  the  world,  are 
seldom  heard  in  churches.  Homilies  on  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage  are  ordered  by  some  denomina- 
tions to  be  delivered  once  in  three  months.  If 
they  were  heard  once  in  three  days  their  injunc- 
tions would  be  none  too  frequent  for  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  great  mass  of  people  who  are  most 
interested  in  the  marriage  relation,  or,  at  least, 
most  curious  about  it. 

A  happy  wife,  happy  during  and  after  half  a 
lifetime  spent  in  wedlock  which  did  not  escape 
the  usual  number  of  family  troubles  and  sorrows, 
said  once  to  me  that  the  trouble  with  marriage 
was  that  conjugal  impulse  and  conjugal  sense 
were  the  scarcest  faculties  of  the  feminine  nature. 
I  would  not  dare  quote  this  if  it  were  not  said  by 
a  woman  instead  of  a  man.  Desiring  at  times  to 
raise  'expectant  brides  to  the  highest  sense  of 
their  coming  responsibilities  and  privileges,  but 
reluctant  to  put  her  own  heart  upon  her  sleeve, 
she  tried  to  find  something  in  print  to  give  them 
by  way  of  counsel  and  admonition,  but  she  did 
not  succeed.  Novels  about  love  and  marriage 
can  be  found  by  the  thousands.  How  many  of 
them  are  of  any  value  at  all  for  purposes  of  in- 
struction and  forewarning  ?  I  leave  the  answer 


SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE.  253 

to  women  who  most  read  novels.  From  those 
who  are  mothers  I  have  never  been  able  to  obtain 
the  names  of  a  half  dozen. 

There  seems  to  be  such  a  thing  as  inheritance 
by  sex.  Woman  was  for  thousands  of  years  the 
slave  or  the  plaything  of  man,  and  she  is  uncon- 
sciously but  terribly  avenging  herself  for  the 
wrongs  done  her  by  the  ruder  sex.  The  best  she 
could  hope  for  in  earlier  days,  the  best  that  many 
of  her  sex  now  dare  hope  for,  is  home,  protection 
and  kind  treatment.  The  kindness  may  be  that 
the  man  shows  to  his  horse  or  his  dog,  perhaps 
to  his  friend,  but  the  fact  that  the  woman  is  to  be 
legally  his  equal,  the  appreciation  of  this,  is  as 
rare  as  the  resolve  of  the  woman  herself  to  make 
herself  equal  to  the  position. 

What  is  the  result  ?  Why,  girls,  sweet  girls, 
girls  whom  good  men  regard  as  only  a  little  lower 
than -the  angels,  often  marry  for  causes  which 
should  not  justify  any  but  the  commonest  women 
in  marrying  at  all.  A  girl  whom  all  of  us  adore 
for  her  goodness,  delicacy  and  sweetness,  sud- 
denly appalls  us  some  day  by  accepting  as  her 
husband  some  gross  fellow  who  has  nothing  but 
his  pocket-book  to  recommend  him.  Were  she 
to  attach  herself  to  him  without  marriage  vows 
and  ceremony,  although  perhaps  with  absolute 
honesty  of  devotion  and  singleness  of  purpose, 
the  world  would  be  horrified.  Yet  where  is  the 
difference  as  regards  her  own  life  ?  Many  other 


254  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

women  know,  if  she  does  not,  that  no  elaborate- 
ness of  ceremony  or  solemnity  can  ever  make  a 
perfect  marriage  between  a  woman  and  a  boor. 
Yet  the  old  story  of  "  Beauty  and  the  Beast"  is 
repeated  every  day  a  thousand  times,  except  that 
the  fairy  touch  which  transformed  the  beast  into 
a  gentleman  never  occurs  nowadays — except  in 
novels. 

There  is  prevalent  a  stupid  notion,  born  of  vul- 
gar natures,  too  vulgar  to  understand  that  the 
Almighty  never  endowed  humanity  with  any 
quality  which  had  not  a  noble  purpose,  that  it  is 
not  safe  to  let  young  people  know  or  think  any- 
thing about  the  realities  of  marriage.  People 
allude  at  once  to  fixed  passion  as  if  the  only 
passion  possible  to  the  marriage  state  were  physi- 
cal, and  as  if  the  companionship,  sympathy,  de- 
votion, tenderness  and  continuity  of  a  friendship 
solemnly  pledged  for  life,  a  friendship  of  a  "char- 
acter that  children  instinctively  long  for  and 
youths  desire  more  earnestly  than  all  things  else 
combined,  never  entered  into  the  thoughts  of 
young  people.  This  is  an  insulting  imputation 
upon  your  children  and  mine  and  of  every  other 
man's  beside. 

Strong  sense  of  duty  may  do  much  to  correct 
the  ruinous  notion  of  young  women  regarding 
marriage,  but  it  is  not  enough  in  itself.  Women 
of  strong  sense  of  duty  are  probably  commoner 
than  men  with  the  same  desirable  qualification. 


SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE.-          255 

Yet  all  of  us  know  of  men  who  have  strayed  from 
married  mates  who  were  pure,  faithful,  and  duti- 
ful— well,  everything  that  a  conscientious  servant 
could  be.  But,  if  a  man's  wife  is  no  more  to  him 
than  a  first-class  servant,  she  cannot  prevent  him 
yielding  to  temptation  if  he  is  so  disposed.  No 
man  worthy  of  the  name  marries  for  the  sake  of 
obtaining  a  servant.-  It  is  far  more  convenient, 
besides  infinitely  cheaper,  to  obtain  servants  and 
housekeepers  through  the  ordinary  channels. 
Religion  is  the  strongest  influence  for  good  that 
humanity  knows,  but  religion  alone  cannot  make 
a  perfect  wife  of  a  well-meaning  woman.  There 
is  no  condition  of  life  in  which  one  virtue  can  be 
successfully  substituted  for  another,  and  no 
amount  of  prayer  and  faith  can  make  a  good 
wife  of  a  good  woman  without  distinct  conjugal 
impulse  and  purpose. 

Neither  can  the  maternal  instinct,  an  honest 
impulse  which  of  itself  has  made  wives  of  many 
good  women,  who  otherwise  never  would  have 
married  at  all.  To  be  the  mother  of  a  man's 
children  should  and  may  entitle  a  woman  to  high 
respect,  but  many  Mormons,  who  heartily  respect 
their  wives,  do  not  hesitate  to  -seek  companionship 
of  other  women. 

A  womar  needs  the  conjugal  instinct  to  make 
a  good  wife  of  herself  and  a  happy  and  faithful 
man  of  her  husband.  If  it  is  not  in  her  she 
should  acquire  it  before  giving  her  hand  and  life 


256  V  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

to  any  man.  The  better  the  man,  the  more  per- 
sistently should  she  hesitate  before  marrying 
without  this  requisite  quality.  The  mother  who 
does  not  inculcate  the  necessity  of  this  impulse 
and  quality  is  more  remiss  of  her  duty  than  if 
she  left  her  children's  stockings  undarned  and 
their  dinners  uncooked. 

As  nearly  all  affection  concerns  itself  with  the 
relations  of  the  sexes,  and  particularly  with  what 
is  alleged  to  be  love,  it  is  commonly  assumed  that 
young  women  are  sufficiently  instructed  through 
desultory  reading  on  what  is  frequently  called 
the  grand  passion.  This  appellation,  "grand 
passion,"  truly  describes  what  the  novelists 
usually  give  us  as  love,  and  is  no  more  education 
or  preparation  of  the  young  person  contemplat- 
ing marriage  than  the  outside  of  a  lot  of  school- 
books  would  be  to  a  student  desiring  to  graduate 
at  a  college.  The  novelist  prudently  ends  his 
story  where  marriage  begins.  Up  to  that  time 
everything  is  very  plain  sailing  for  both  man 
and  woman,  but  there,  where  the  necessity  for 
knowledge  begins,  the  novelist  discreetly  ends 
his  tale.  How  can  he  do  more?  Were  he  to 
make  his  story  as  it  should  be,  in  the  light  of 
•human  experience,  it  is  doubtful  whether  young 
men  and  young  women  would  read  it  at  all. 

Is  all  the  blame  of  marriage  failures  to  be  at- 
tributed to  women?  By  no  means.  The  men 
are  terribly  faulty  creatures,  but  it  is  the  genera? 


SOCIETY'S  FOUNDATION-STONE.  257 

opinion  that,  through  some  reason  or  collection 
of  reasons,  the  conjugal  instinct  in  man  is  more 
fully  developed  than  in  woman.  Most  of  us  know 
of  men  not  very  good,  some  of  them  not  good  at 
all,  who  become  model  husbands  from  the  time 
of  marriage.  How  many  know  of  wild  women, 
of  careless  girls,  of  whom  the  same  could  be 
said  ?  Whether  this  is  due  to  the  invisible  con- 
nection between  the  material  and  the  spiritual; 
whether  woman's  nature  is  kept  in  an  embryonic 
state  to  the  verge  of  deterioration  by  the  modern 
custom  of  bringing  up  girls  in-doors,  denying 
them  physical  exercise,  separating  them  from  as- 
sociations with  their  brothers,  to  say  nothing  of 
other  members  of  the  ruder  sex ;  whether  the 
increasing  prosperity  of  the  world,  which  makes 
it  no  longer  necessary  that  the  entire  interests 
of  the  family,  including  some  of  the  confidences 
between  husband  and  wife,  should  be  heard  by 
children  as  once  they  were,  the  fact  certainly  is 
that  the  opinion  which  the  young  girl  at  the 
present  day  has  of  matrimony  is  one  of  the  most 
appallingly  inaccurate  notions  that  can  be  en- 
countered in  conversation  anywhere. 

Then  how  is  the  desired  change  to  be  brought 
about  ?  Only  through  public  sentiment,  in  which 
the  churches  ought  to  take  the  lead.  Marriage 
by  accident,  which  is  the  common  method,  should 
be  frowned  upon  and  discouraged,  no  matter  how 
romantic  or  "  cunning "  the  preliminaries  may 

17 


258  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

seem.  ^Everybody  knows  that  meii  never  enter 
into  a  business  partnership,  which  may  be  termi- 
nated at  any  time,  without  some  sense  of  the  fitness 
and  compatibility  of  the  contracting  parties. 
Were  they  to  fail  in  this  respect,  all  of  their  friends 
would  protest,  and  all  of  their  acquaintances  . 
would  make  fun  of  them.  Both  parties  would 
suffer  in  business  reputation  by  such  a  blunder. 
It  should  be  the  same,  though  far  more  earnestly, 
regarding  the  life-partnership  that  is  formed  at  a 
wedding.  All  relatives  of  the  contracting  parties 
have  at  least  one  interest  at  stake  which  justifies 
them  in  protesting  against  a  blunder — I  allude 
to  family  reputation. 

Then  aren't  3'oung,  tender,  loving  hearts  to  be 
allowed  to  choose  for  themselves  ?  Nonsense ! 
How  much  of  love,  in  the  true  meaning  of  the 
word,  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  majority  of 
marriages?  If  men,  as  a  class,  loved  their 
sweethearts  as  much  as  they  loved  their  dogs, 
there  would  be  less  ground  for  complaint ;  but 
men  seldom  tire  of  their  dogs  ;  who  is  there  that 
does  not  know  men  who  tire  of  their  wives  ? 

Am  I  harping  again  upon  woman's  failure  to 
remain  dear  to  her  husband  ?  No ;  but  I  do  say 
that  the  girl  who  makes  the  "  best  match,"  as  the 
saying  is,  and  by  marrying  money  marries  above 
her  station,  is  accepting  more  than  she  may  after- 
ward be  able  to  live  up  to.  Marriages  should  be 
between  equals — persons  who  are  competent  to 


SOCIETY**  FOUNDATION-STONE.  259 

support  one  another  in  any  and  every  condition 
to  which  their  material  life  can  ever  lead  them. 

As  for  men,  the  greatest  sinners,  though  not 
the  greatest  sufferers,  by  marriage  blunders,  the 
man  who  marries  except  with  the  idea  of 
making  his  wife  his  closest  companion,  should 
be  regarded  by  all  his  acquaintances  a  deliberate 
scoundrel.  A  chance  passion  is  no  excuse  for 
marriage ;  neither  is  a  condescending  pity.  The 
man  who  marries  merely  for  the  sake  of  getting 
a  permanent  cook,  housekeeper  or  plaything,  is 
equally  a  scoundrel,  and  deserves  more  earnest 
and  general  execration  than  if  he  entered  into 
familiar  relations  with  a  woman  without  the  for- 
mality of  marriage.  The  whole  community 
should  be  on  guard  against  man  or  woman  who 
makes  any  less  of  marriage  ties  than  the  highest 
honor  demands. 

Some  people  whose  conjugal  relations  are  ir- 
regular, are  irreproachable  otherwise,  do  you 
say  ?  Yes  ;  but  you  can  say  as  much  about  some 
thieves  and  forgers;  except  for  their  one  fault 
they  are  good  fellows.  The  moral  influence  upon 
the  community  of  an  unfaithful  or  careless  hus- 
band or  wife  is  worse  than  that  of  a  common 
criminal,  for  there  is  no  fixed  passion  in  human 
nature  that  causes  peopled  minds  to  dwell  upon 
theft  or  forgery  or  murder,  and  to  make  excuses 
for  the  persons  who  are  guilty  of  them. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   DEMON    OF    DIVORCE. 

IN  one  of  the  older  theological  periods,  yet  not 
so  very  old,  there  was  a  theory  that  Satan  was  a 
necessary  part  of  the  godhead.  At  present  there 
seems  to  be  a  theory  like  unto  it.  It  is  that 
divorce  is  a  necessary  feature  of  the  marriage 
system. 

This  notion  is  working  fully  as  much  mischief 
in  morals  and  manners  as  Satan  could  do  if  he 
were  part  of  Omnipotence. 

Divorce  is  popular  with  certain  classes,  be- 
cause married  life — not  marriage — is  sometimes 
a  failure,  but  the  fault  is  not  with  the  institution, 
but  the  individual.  When  Mrs.  Mona  Caird's 
low-toned  essay,  " Is  Marriage  a  Failure?"  was 
being  talked  of  a  few  months  ago,  Rev.  David 
Swing,  of  Chicago,  said  the  question  should 
have  been,  "  Is  Good  Sense  a  Failure  ?  "  Dr. 
Swing  then  struck  at  the  root  of  the  trouble  by 
saying,  "  111  comes  not  because  men  and  women 
are  married,  but  because  they  are  fools."  Yet 
this  is  almost  the  only  class  for  whom  ou* 
divorce  laws  are  made,  and  the  more  liberal  the 

260 


THE  DEMON  OK  DIVORCE.  261 

laws,  the  more  foolish  the  fools  can  afford 
to  be. 

Were  divorce  popular  only  for  the  sake  of  get- 
ting rid  of  undesirable  partners  it  would  be  bad 
enough.  Really  it  is  a  thousand  times  worse  be- 
cause its  principal  purpose  is  to  help  husband  or 
wife  to  a  new  partner.  This  cause  never  is  as- 
signed in  a  petition  for  divorce ;  it  doesn't  need 
to  be ;  the  community  has  learned  to  assume  it, 
as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  case  was  well  put  a  short  time  ago  by 
Rabbi  Silverman,  at  the  great  Temple  Bmanu- 
El,  in  New  York,  when  he  said,  "  The  real  cause 
for  divorce  is  that  there  is  nothing  behind  the 
civil  contract  that  cements  the  marriage  union 
and  so  welds  it  that  nothing  can  tear  it  asunder. 
The  real  cause  for  divorce  is  that  the  marriage 
was  a  failure  because  it  was  not  a  marriage  in 
fact,  but  merely  in  name.  It  was  not  a  union  of 
hearts  for  mutual  happiness,  but  merely  a  part- 
nership for  vain  pleasure  and  profit."  So  long  as 
we  allow  divorce  to  be  easy,  do  we  not  encourage 
such  marriages  ? 

Any  divorce  except  for  the  one  cause  recognized 
by  the  founder  of  Christianity  is  more  injurious 
to  society  at  large  than  any  other  crime,  murder 
not  excepted.  Most  crimes  may  have  a  good 
reflex  influence  by  persuading  men  to  be  more 
watchful  of  their  own  impulses  and  lives,  but  the 
men  or  women  who  obtain  divorces  for  any  but 


262  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS    OF   THEE." 

the  gravest  cause  are  sure,  aside  from  the  effect 
upon  themselves,  to  increase  the  discontent  of 
acquaintances  whose  married  life  is  not  all  that 
had  been  hoped  or  wished. 

One  condition  absolutely  necessary  to  a  pure 
and  happy  married  life  is  the  belief  from  the  be- 
ginning that  wedlock  is  to  last  as  long  as  life  it- 
self. Without  the  stimulus  of  this  tremendous 
sense  of  responsibility  no  person  will  unmake 
and  remake  himself  so  as  to  be  the  fit  companion 
of  another.  Even  with  this  impulse  the  effort 
often  fails,  as  all  of  us  know  from  observation  of 
our  own  acquaintances.  To  admit  the  possibility 
of  a  cessation  of  relations  or,  worse  still,  a  change 
of  marital  relations,  is  to  relax  effort  and  to  be- 
come a  selfish  time-server — to  become  a  confidence 
man  instead  of  a  partner. 

The  effect  of  a  divorce  suit  upon  the  plaintiff 
is  something  which  does  not  require  theorizing. 
It  can  be  ascertained  by  personal  observation  in 
almost  any  American  court  which  grants  divorces, 
for  such  cases  are  becoming  more  and  more  fre- 
quent. Whether  the  plaintiff  be  man  or  woman, 
whether  the  cause  be  drunkenness,  or  desertion, 
or  incompatibility  of  temper,  or  insanity,  or  im- 
providence, or  any  of  the  various  causes  for  which 
divorces  are  granted  in  some  States,  the  plaintiff 
or  complainant,  if  closely  watched  from  day  to 
day  during  the  proceedings,  will  be  seen,  even  by 
his  dearest  friends,  to  show  marks  of  mental  de- 


THE   DEMON   OF    DIVORCE.  263 

terioration.  To  tear  two  lives  apart  is  a  serious 
thing  at  best.  Two  friends  bound  only  by  ordi, 
nary  ties  nave  seldom  separated  without  bad  effects 
being  visible  upon  both.  Where  the  friendship 
is  of  a  nature  that  has  affected  every  portion  of 
the  life  of  each,  as  must  have  been  the  case  even 
with  wedded  couples  who  have  married  at  haste 
and  have  not  even  begun  to  repent  at  leisure, 
the  effect  is  so  marked  that  a  person  seeking 
divorce  almost  always  loses  some  of  his  adherents, 
who  previously  had  been  his  warmest  friends,  be- 
fore the  case  is  decided.  Where  love  was,  hatred 
is  excited  though  it  may  not  even  have  existed  in 
the  first  place.  The  contest  upon  points  of  fact, 
upon  recollections  of  difficulties  and  differences, 
the  depressing  literalness  and  materialism  of 
proof  such  as  is  demanded  in  courts,  the  entire 
materialism,  heartlessness,  callousness,  of  all  the 
proceedings,  as  they  must  be  conducted  under 
forms  of  law,  are  such  as  to  debase  any  nature 
but  the  noblest — but  noble  natures  do  not  seek 
divorce. 

Bad  as  may  be  the  condition  of  the  complain- 
ant and  the  effect  upon  his  own  manner  and  con- 
duct, it  is  not  as  deplorable  as  that  visible  upon 
the  defendant.  To  face  any  direct  charge  in  a 
court  of  law  before  witness,  even  if  these  be  only 
officers  of  the  law  who  are  supposed  to  be  impar- 
tial and  judicial  in  their  opinions  and  actions,  the 
violation  of  privacy  in  regard  to  interests  and  re- 


264  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

lations,  which  above  all  others — except  perhaps 
those  of  a  human  being  toward  his  God — are 
sacred  even  to  the  rudest  minds,  cannot  help 
have  its  effect  upon  any  nature  but  the  strongest. 
The  life  of  the  defendant  in  a  divorce  suit,  unless 
the  complaint  is  utterly  groundless  and  unfair,  is 
from  the  first  likely  to  be  blasted.  The  more  at 
fault  the  more  the  defendant  must  suffer,  not  only 
in  his  own  self-respect,  but  in  the  regard  of  those 
about  him.  The  curious  gaze  of  the  spectators, 
the  intent  look  of  the  jurors,  the  disgust  of  the 
judge  upon  the  bench,  the  flippancy  of  the  wit- 
ness on  the  stand,  all  have  influences  which  would 
make  many  innocent  people  show  signs  of  guilt. 
Upon  any  one  really  at  fault  all  these  influences 
must  be  still  more  depressing. 

It  is  a  common  saying  among  lawyers  that  a 
woman  divorced  from  her  husband,  on  no  matter 
how  slight  cause,  is  pretty  sure  to  go  to  the  bad 
thereafter.  This  is  not  necessarily  an  indication, 
so  the  lawyers  say,  that  the  woman  is  at  fault,  but 
that  the  mental  strain  to  which  she  has  been  sub- 
jected, the  strain  upon  her  self-respect,  is  greater 
than  poor  humanity  is  equal  to.  What  the  sub- 
sequent results  are  upon  her  in  society  we  all 
know.  The  present  ruler  of  England  has  de- 
cided that  no  divorced  woman,  no  matter  in  what 
country  her  divorce  was  obtained,  shall  ever  ap- 
pear at  court.  The  rule  seems  cruel,  but  social 
results  certainly  appear  to  justify  it. 


THE   DEMON   OF   DIVORCE.  265 

If  there  are  children  in  the  case,  as  usually 
there  are — for  somehow  people  without  children 
seldom  appear  in  the  divorce  courts — if  there  are 
children,  the  results  upon  them  are  worse  than 
upon  either  the  complainant  or  defendant.  The 
principal  good  influence  children  are  subject 
to  is  that  of  home.  A  disagreement  between 
father  and  mother  naturally  interrupts  this.  An 
absolute  break  between  the  parents  cannot  fail  to 
immediately  have  the  worst  possible  effects  upon 
the  children.  All  children — except  yours  and 
mine — are  at  times  brutes.  There  are  no  worse 
tale-tellers,  no  worse  back-biters,  no  worse  sayers 
of  cruel  things,  than  little  children.  It  is  not 
that  they  are  unusually  wicked  or  savage  by  na- 
ture, but  insufficient  training,  lack  of  self-restraint, 
lack  of  adult  sense  of  propriety,  causes  the  tongue 
to  say  whatever  is  in  the  heart ;  and  any  adult 
who  is  obliged  to  keep  a  watch  upon  his  own 
tongue  should  be  able  through  sympathy  to  im- 
agine the  savagery  which  will  be  inflicted  upon 
the  children  of  divorced  or  divorcing  people  by 
their  associates.  However  disobedient  or  irrev- 
erent children  may  be  to  their  parents,  the  filial 
instinct  exists  in  all  of  them,  and  a  stab  at  either 
parent  is  felt  most  keenly  by  the  children. 

The  ordinary  consolations  of  a  person  wounded 
through  the  heart  of  another  are  denied  the  child. 
It  has  neither  religion  nor  philosophy,  nor  even 
stoicism,  to  support  it.  It  must  suffer  keenly, 


266  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

X 

and  when  it  looks  for  consolation  or  desires  con- 
solation, where  is  it  to  go,  when  the  two  authors 
of  its  being,  whom  it  has  been  taught  to  regard 
with  equal  respect,  are  at  difference,  and  each  is 
ready  to  accuse  the  other  and  belittle  the  other  ? 
The  child  of  a  divorced  person  is  a  marked  ob- 
ject of  curiosity  in  the  society  of  children, 
whether  in  neighborhood  parties  or  at  school  or 
Sunday-school,  or  even  in  church.  The  slightest 
quarrel  brings  the  inevitable  taunt  that  "  your 
mother  ran  away  from  your  father,"  or  "  your 
father  is  in  love  with  somebody  else's  mother," 
or  "  you  haven't  any  father  now,"  or  something 
of  the  kind.  Only  a  short  time  ago  the  news- 
papers of  the  United  States  recorded  the  suicide 
of  a  child  of  nine  years,  who  had  sought  death 
to  avoid  the  torment  of  being  twitted  with  the 
separation  of  its  parents. 

Four  lines  of  one  of  Pope's  poems,  which  prob- 
ably are  familiar  to  every  one,  indicate  the  gen- 
eral effect  of  divorced  persons  upon  society : 

"  Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  hideous  mien 
That  to  be  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen ; 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  its  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

The  report  that  any  person  has  obtained  a  di- 
vorce for  any  cause  but  the  most  serious  gener- 
ally sends  a  shudder  through  any  American  social 
circle  which  calls  itself  respectable.  Even  husbands 
and  wives  whose  own  marital  experiences  have 


THE  DEMON   OE  DIVORCE.  267 

not  been  as  joyous  as  was  expected,  are  shocked 
by  the  legal  disruption  of  a  family — the  spectacle 
of  the  wifeless  husband  whose  wife  really  lives, 
or  the  woman  without  mate  or  protector  whose 
husband  nevertheless  is  not  yet  dead.  But  the 
force  of  the  shock  gradually  weakens  through 
frequent  meetings  with  either  party.  The  faults 
of  the  absent  member  are  recalled,  the  good 
points  of  the  alleged  culprit  are  also  recalled,  and 
little  by  little  excuses  are  made,  until  the  change 
is  regarded  as  coolly  as  the  dissolution  of  a  busi- 
ness copartnership.  Unfortunately,  too,  the  par- 
ties to  a  divorce  are  often  brilliant  members  of 
the  society  in  which  they  have  moved,  for  the  live- 
liest persons  are  generally  the  most  discontented. 
The  unrest  of  some  phases  of  social  life,  the  de- 
sire to  be  less  confined  at  home,  and  to  be  more 
in  general  and  congenial  company,  has  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  bringing  about  divorce,  much 
though  the  guilty  parties  may  deny  it,  and  the 
persons  who  most  frequently  appear  in  the  divorce 
courts  are  those  who  have  been  the  most  popular 
in  their  respective  social  sets. 

This  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is  only  the  begin- 
ning of  the  evil.  What  man  has  done  man — or 
woman — may  do,  is  as  true  of  evil  as  of  good.  If 
Mr.  A  or  Mrs.  B  has  escaped  a  lot  of  apparent 
marital  trouble  by  divorce,  why  should  not  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  C  do  likewise?  They  meant  well — 
this  is  an  admission  which  most  people  sooner  or 


268        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

later  make  in  favor  of  everybody  not  absolutely 
fiendish — they  failed.  Why  should  they  not  try 
again  ?  Then  besides,  they  once  more  have  their 
freedom,  and  the  longing  to  be  free  is  strong 
enough  in  the  animal  portion  of  any  one's  nature 
to  rise  and  trample  down  everything  else,  if  it  is 
at  all  encouraged.  Little  by  little,  yet  very  rap- 
idly, contemplation  of  the  problem  of  divorce 
discourages  efforts  towards  self-improvement  and 
the  perfection  of  marital  life.  It  is  a  benumber 
and  deadener  of  every  honorable  conjugal  im- 
pulse. To  endeavor  to  decide  between  two  evils 
is  an  experience  which  is  demoralizing  to  any  one ; 
to  decide  between  evil  and  good,  when  the  good 
seems  no  more  desirable  than  the  evil,  is  a  great 
deal  worse.  Yet  this  is  the  mental  and  moral 
condition  of  every  one  still  married  who  con- 
templates divorce  as  a  possible  release  from  rela- 
tions which  are  unsatisfactory,  yet  which  might 
be  made  all  that  they  should  be. 

The  effect  of  association  with  divorced  people 
— and  there  is  no  grade  of  society  which  does 
not  contain  them — is  especially  deplorable  upon 
young  people  of  marriageable  age.  The  veriest 
heathen  who  has  studied  the  influences  of  mar- 
riage will  admit  that  the  rising  generation  needs 
greater  seriousness  in  contemplating  wedlock. 
But  what  can  be  expected  of  any  good-natured, 
well-meaning,  thoughtless,  careless,  pleasure- 
loving,  selfish  young  man  or  girl — and  nearly 


THE;  DEMON  OF  DIVORCE.  269 

all  young  people  are  fairly  described  by  these 
adjectives — who,  while  wondering  whether  or  no 
to  propose  to,  or  accept,  some  attractive  person 
of  the  opposite  sex,  is  continually  reminded 
by  certain  facts  and  incidents  that  if  the  bond 
becomes  irksome  it  may  be  broken  at  will  ? 

Some  husbands  and  wives  fight  like  cats  and 
dogs,  but  in  spite  of  it  all,  thank  God,  they  still 
dearly  love  their  children.  What  man  or  woman 
within  the  pale  of  decency  would  give  a  daughter 
in  marriage  with  the  thought  that  she  might  be 
put  away  by  her  husband  at  some  time  for  some 
cause  recognized  by  the  courts  of  Utah,  or  Chicago, 
or  Indiana,  as  sufficient  for  divorce  ?  What  parent 
will  allow  a  son  to  mate  with  a  girl  who  might 
possibly  weary  of  him,  release  herself  through 
legal  measures  and  become  the  wife  of  some 
other  man  ? 

Physicians  and  spiritual  directors  agree  that 
persistent  thought  upon  the  lower  developments 
and  interests  of  the  marriage  relation  are  ex- 
tremely injurious  to  human  character.  What 
other  phases  of  married  life  can  be  much  dwelt 
upon  by  the  mind  of  any  one  who  thinks  at  all 
of  the  possibility  of  divorce  for  any  cause  but 
the  most  serious  ?  The  relationship  thus  re- 
garded is  so  nearly  that  of  the  animals  that  love, 
so  far  as  it  has  existed,  must  be  brought  down  to 
the  level  of  passion,  and  passion  afterward  to 
that  of  lust,  and  lust  in  turn  down  to  appetite, 


270  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

until  beings,  who  once  had  hopes  and  aspirations 
and  longings  which,  in  spite  of  being  unfortified 
by  knowledge  and  principle,  were  noble  in  them- 
selves, place  themselves  practically  on  the  level 
of  the  beasts.  According  to  managers  and  chap- 
lains of  great  prisons  there  is  hope  of  reform 
for  almost  any  criminal  whose  offences  were 
committed  only  through  what  are  called  the 
selfish  instincts,  by  which  is  generally  meant 
destructiveness  and  theft.  But  these  same  ex- 
perts in  crime  are  utterly  hopeless  of  the  refor- 
mation of  any  one  whose  sexual  instincts  have 
become  depraved  or  even  inverted.  Yet  it  is 
difficult  for  any  one  to  go  through  a  divorce 
case,  or  to  think  steadily  upon  the  possibility  of 
divorce,  without  such  a  deterioration  of  sexual 
feeling,  impulse,  and  aspiration.  What  hope 
can  there  be  that  such  persons  will  occupy  a 
respectable  position  in  society  in  the  future  ? 

Can  divorce  be  made  less  popular  and  easy  ? 
Yes.  How?  By  a  constitutional  amendment, 
against  which  no  respectable  citizen  not  a  lawyer 
would  dare  to  vote,  that  the  national  government 
shall  make  a  divorce  law  to  replace  those  of  the 
States.  Tricks  of,  and  concessions  to  divorce 
lawyers  cannot  be  slipped  through  Congress  as 
easily  as  through  a  State  Legislature.  Congress 
is  up  to  a  great  many  dirty  jobs,  but  not  of  that 
kind. 

Congress  can't  make  a  stringent  divorce  law, 


THE  DEMON   OF  DIVORCE.  271 

say  some  lawyers,  but  perhaps  these  gentlemen 
have  their  own  reasons  for  saying  so.  Ex- 
Attorney-General  Russell,  of  New  York,  who 
has  looked  into  the  subject  closely,  recently  said 
such  a  constitutional  amendment  was  possible, 
because  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  States 
already  are  inclined  to  limit  divorce  to  the  gravest 
cause  only. 

In  the  framing  and  adoption  of  such  a  con- 
stitutional amendment,  Congress  would  have 
support  from  a  source  whose  importance  cannot 
be  overestimated.  I  mean  the  Church  ;  not  any 
one  denomination,  but  all — Mormons  excepted. 
Bishop  Foss,  of  the  Methodist  Church,  said  re- 
cently that  his  denomination  could  be  counted 
upon  to  support  such  a  movement ;  Bishop 
Whittaker,  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
spoke  in  similar  strain.  The  Catholic  Church 
recognizes  but  one  cause  of  divorce,  and  the 
Hebrews  are  equally  rigid.  Indeed,  all  creeds 
agree  on  this  subject,  and  when  the  amendment 
comes  up  for  vote  or  ratification  the  influence  of 
such  "  Church  Union  "  cannot  be  combatted — 
much  less  overcome. 

The  effect  of  a  divorce  law  upon  the  com- 
munity should  be  like  that  of  a  burned  bridge  to 
a  lot  of  soldiers  who  have  just  crossed  it.  With 
no  possibility  of  going  back,  there  is  every  in- 
ducement to  go  ahead  and  make  the  best  of 
whatever  is  before. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES. 

THE  average  American  farmer  is  one  of  the 
best  fellows  in  the  world.  He  also  is  one  of  the 
most  unfortunate. 

He  generally  conies  to  his  profession  by  acci- 
dent. He  may  not  have  meant  to  become  a 
farmer,  but  through  death,  or  change  of  family, 
or  some  other  circumstance  entirely  out  of  his 
own  control,  he  comes  in  possession  of  the 
family  estates,  almost  certainly  encumbered  with 
mortgages,  and  must  continue  the  family  busi- 
ness to  secure  a  living  for  himself.  From  the 
first  he  is  doomed  to  loneliness,  which  is  one  of 
the  worst  curses  that  humanity  can  suffer.  He 
cannot  afford  to  employ  help,  for  if  he  had  capi- 
tal he  would  not  be  a  farmer,  and  it  requires 
capital  to  secure  proper  assistance  in  the  conduct 
of  a  farm.  He  must  do  all  of  his  work  himself. 
If  he  cannot  do  it,  it  must  remain  undone.  As 
a  rule  the  farmers  of  the  United  States  are  awake 
long  before  daylight  in  the  morning,  and  their 
work  continues  long  after  dark  in  the  evening. 
The  working  hours  of  the  day,  which  to  the 

272 


TACOMA   BUILDING. 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  273 

ordinary  laborer  are  ten  hours,  and  to  more  fav- 
ored classes  eight  or  seven,  or  even  six,  are  to 
the  farmer  as  a  rule  at  least  fourteen  in  twenty- 
four.  His  work  is  never  done,  any  more  than 
womans. 

As  a  natural  consequence  he  always  is  tired 
out.  Custom  and  the  demand  of  the  markets 
restrict  him  generally  to  a  single  crop.  Whether 
this  be  wheat,  or  corn,  or  oats,  the  seeding  time 
is  comparatively  short.  So  is  harvest  time.  The 
farm  is  larger  than  any  one  man  or  family  can 
possibly  manage,  but  American  demand  being 
at  present  only  for  raw  materials,  he  has  no 
choice.  He  must  plant  the  staples  from  which 
foreign  countries  are  willing  to  purchase  the  sur- 
plus for  cash.  Otherwise  his  condition  would  be 
worse  than  that  of  a  slave.  It  is  very  hard  for 
any  one  man  to  "break  up"  more  than  one  acre 
of  ground  per  day  with  a  good  team  of  horses. 
What,  therefore,. can  the  single-handed  American 
farmer,  who  owns  a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of 
ground,  the  customary  "quarter  section,"  expect 
to  do  with  his  immense  estate?  To  properly 
care  for  his  family  he  should  plant  all  of  it ;  but, 
except  in  the  case  of  wheat,  if  he  were  to  plant 
it  all,  one-half  to  three-fourths  of  the  crop  would 
be  wasted  through  lack  of  necessary  cultivation. 
His  horse  is  like  himself,  an  overworked  animal. 
In  any  section  of  the  country  the  farmer  is  re- 
garded safe  who  owns  a  pair  of  good  horses.  But 


274  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

animals  working  twenty-six  days  per  month  from 
sunrise  to  sunset  in  the  long  days  of  summer 
cannot  be  kept  up  to  their  work  by  any  amount 
of  feeding  or  care.  Sooner  or  later  one  or  the 
other  of  a  span  of  horses  may  break  down,  and 
then  the  farmer  is  helpless  unless  he  has  money 
in  hand  with  which  to  purchase  a  substitute. 
Not  ten  farmers  thus  fortunate  can  be  found  in 
any  contiguous  hundred. 

For  the  farmer  is  always  poor.  If  it  were 
otherwise  he  would  not  be  a  farmer.  A  very  lit- 
tle experience  on  the  farm  and  less  observation 
of  men  about  him  show  him  that  there  is  more 
money  in  mechanical  or  mercantile  business,  to 
say  nothing  of  other  callings,  than  his  own.  But 
he  is  handicapped  from  the  start,  no  matter  if  he 
begins  young,  and  while  he  still  is  a  bachelor. 
When  he  has  a  family  on  his  hands  he  is  simply 
helpless  so  far  as  the  possibility  of  change  goes. 
The  average  farmer  lives  in  hopes  that  in  time 
his  children,  of  whom  he  generally  has  many, 
will  be  of  some  assistance  to  him.  Frequently 
his  hopes  are  apparently  fulfilled  for  a  short  time. 
But  children  are  not  as  steady,  as  grown  people. 
They  roam  about  in  any  time  which  they  have 
to  themselves.  They  reach  the  villages.  They 
learn  of  a  life  which  contains  less  toil  and  more 
comforts  than  that  to  which  they  are  accustomed, 
and  one  by  one  they  begin  to  intimate  a  desire 
for  a  change.  It  is  utterly  out  of  nature  for  the 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  275 

farmer  to  disregard  this  desire.  No  matter  how 
much  he  may  love  their  company  he  knows  in 
his  inmost  heart  that  a  change  from  farm  life  to 
some  sphere  of  activity  which  is  less  exacting 
would  be  a  benefit  to  them  physically  and  men- 
tally, possibly  morally  also.  His  sons  endeavor 
to  become  salesmen  in  stores,  or  to  be  clerks  in 
lawyers'  offices,  or  solicitors  for  one  business  en- 
terprise or  another — anything  to  avoid  the  per- 
sistent and  wearing  drudgery  of  the  farm.  His 
daughters,  in  spite  of  the  boasted  independence 
of  the  farmer,  and  of  his  family,  are  very  easily 
persuaded  to  go  into  any  factory  that  there  may 
be  in  the  vicinity.  It  is  not  that  they  love  home 
less,  but  they  love  companionship  more,  and,  be- 
ing like  human  beings  everywhere  else,  they  are 
keenly  sensitive  to  the  cheering  influence  of 
money — real  cash  received  once  a  week  instead 
of  a  possible  balance  to  the  family's  credit  at  the 
village  store  at  the  end  of  the  year. 

For  the  American  farmer  is  generally  at  the 
mercy  of  the  trader.  The  trader  is  as  good  as 
the  average  merchant,  and  is  practically  a  mer- 
chant in  all  respects.  He  is  generally  the 
keeper  of  a  general  store  at  which  the  farmer 
during  the  year  purchases  everything  which  he 
may  need  for  his  family  on  an  open  account ; 
with  the  understanding  that  when  his  crops  are 
made  they  shall  be  turned  over  to  the  merchant, 
and  a  general  balance  struck.  When  there  is 


276  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

a  good  year  the  result  may  be  in  favor  of  the 
farmer,  but  good  years  are  not  the  rule  in  the 
United  States,  even  though  the  country  is,  as  is 
said,  the  garden  of  the  world.  People  who  work 
and  strain  their  energies  to  the  uttermost  require 
more  in  the  way  of  ordinary  creature  comforts 
than  those  whose  lives  are  more  regular,  and, 
though  the  farmer  may  discuss  prices  with  great 
earnestness  with  the  local  merchant,  the  end 
is  practically  the  same :  he  purchases  whatever 
his  family  wants,  so  long  as  he  can  have  it 
"  charged."  He  must  purchase  at  the  price 
stipulated  by  the  merchant,  for  it  is  utterly  -im- 
possible for  him  to  look  anywhere  else  for  what 
he  may  need. 

Some  newspapers  have  made  sensational  com- 
plaints of  the  system  of  peonage  to  which  some 
southern  blacks  or  freedmen  have  been  reduced  by 
the  storekeepers  of  plantations  since  slavery  days, 
but  there  is  no  practical  difference  between  their 
condition  and  that  of  the  farmers  the  country 
over.  "  The  borrower  is  servant  to  the  lender," 
and  the  man  who  has  no  money  with  which  to 
purchase  must  submit  to  the  exactions  of  who- 
ever is  willing  to  extend  credit  to  him.  Farmers' 
notes  are  in  the  market  in  almost  every  county  of 
the  United  States,  and  frequently  those  of  which 
sell  at  the  lowest  prices  are  drawn  by  men  of  whose 
honesty  of  purpose  and  intention  to  pay  no  one 
has  the  slightest  doubt.  The  only  reason  is  that 


THK  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  277 

the  farmer's  absolute  necessities  have  been  in 
excess  of  the  cash  value  of  his  farm  products. 

It  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  farmer's  life  as 
being  the  happiest  and  the  safest  occupation  in  the 
world.  Nearly  every  one  knows  of  some  one 
successful  farmer,  and  bases  his  judgment  upon 
his  knowledge  of  that  solitary  individual.  But 
facts  are  stubborn  things,  and  they  have  been 
proved  by  figures  in  the  United  States  in  a 
manner  that  should  make  those  who  are  envious 
of  the  farmer  think  again. 

According  to  the  last  census  report  the  aver- 
age valuation  of  the  farm-lands  of  the  United 
States,  including  buildings,  was  less  than  twenty 
dollars  per  acre.  The  average  value  of  the 
products  was  less  than  eight  dollars  per  acre. 
A  quarter  section  of  land,  which  is  the  ordinary 
size  of  an  American  farm  in  the  States  most 
devoted  to  agriculture,  is  a  hundred  and  sixty 
acres.  The  reader  may  cipher  out  his  own 
inferences  with  very  little  trouble,  remembering 
that  groceries,  medicines,  clothing,  and  every- 
thing else  not  produced  by  the  farm  costs  quite 
as  much  in  the  rural  districts  as  in  the  large 
cities,  and  generally  a  great  deal  more. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  gold  produced  in  the 
mining  districts  of  the  United  States  has  cost 
far  more  in  labor  and  physical  loss  than  its  value 
amounted  to.  The  cost  of  the  farm-land  in  the 
United  States  leaves  the  apparent  waste  on  gold 


278  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

in  absolute  insignificance.  There  are  tnousands 
of  American  farms  to-day,  probably  hundreds  of 
thousands,  of  which  the  land  under  the  hammer 
would  not  bring  as  much  money  as  the  fences  of 
those  same  farms  have  cost.  The  expense  of 
clearing  wooded  land  to  fit  it  for  agriculture  has 
been  far  greater  in  almost  every  section  of  the 
country  than  the  value  of  the  land  at  the 
highest  price  prevailing  would  repay.  The 
work  of  fencing  and  clearing  was  done  by  other 
generations,  who  got  less  from  their  farms  than 
the  present  occupants  are  receiving. 

One  of  the  favorite  arguments  of  men  who 
urge  younger  men  to  go  West  and  take  a  farm 
and  grow  up  with  the  country  is,  that  they  will 
never  lack  for  plenty  to  eat.  This  statement  is 
entirely  true.  A  man  can  always  have  plenty 
of  food  from  his  own  estate  if  he  cultivates  it  at 
all,  or  has  any  live  stock.  But  one  accompany- 
ing fact  is,  and  this  fact  should  be  carefully  con- 
sidered— that  frequently  he  has  no  place  at  which 
to  market  at  a  profit  what  he  produces.  He  is 
so  far  from  any  market  that  what  he  does  not 
eat  he  frequently  is  obliged  to  waste.  Corn  in 
the  ear  has  been  used  during  many  winters  for 
fuel  in  portions  of  the  West,  not  because  there 
was  no  wood  to  be  had,  but  because  there  was  no 
convenient  place  at  which  to  market  the  corn, 
even  at  the  bare  expense  of  shelling  and  hauling 
to  market,  to  say  nothing  of  the  previous  cost  of 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  279 

planting,  cultivation,  and  harvesting.  Where  a 
farmer  is  near  a  market,  as  in  some  eastern 
States,  his  table  is  no  better  set  than  that  of  the 
cheapest-paid  mechanic  in  the  city.  He  may 
have  eighty  acres  of  wheat,  but  if  his  family 
wishes  to  eat  a  cabbage  they  are  obliged  to  go  to 
some  village  market  and  purchase  it ;  the  farmer 
himself  has  not  had  time  to  plant  and  cultivate 
it.  Summer  boarders  find  fewer  vegetables  in 
the  country  than  in  the  city. 

The  natural  question  occurs,  why  does  not 
the  farmer  change  his  business  as  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  mechanics  and  other  men  are  doing 
every  year  ?  The  answer  is  that  it  is  impossible 
for  him  to  do  so.  He  cannot  leave  his  farm 
without  ruin  to  his  family,  for  to  neglect  to  plant 
and  cultivate  is  to  lose  the  credit  upon  which  in 
ninety-nine  cases  in  a  hundred  he  must  subsist. 
He  cannot  sell  his  farm  at  auction  under  the 
hammer  as  if  it  were*  a  city  house  or  a  village 
residence,  for  purchasers  of  farms  are  the  rarest 
of  all  purchasers  of  real-estate  in  the  United 
States.  This  is  not  in  accordance  with  European 
precedent  or  supposition,  but  it  has  been  demon- 
strated in  every  State,  and  almost  every  county 
of  the  Union. 

Does  all  this  mean  that  farming  will  not  pay  ? 
No.  Farming  will  pay  if  backed  by  capital  as 
well  as  practical  knowledge.  But  it  is  almost 
impossible  that  the  American  farmer  of  the 


280        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

present  generation  shall  have  any  capital  from 
any  source  whatever.  Farming,  when  conducted 
intelligently,  can  be  made  profitable  in  any 
portion  of  the  United  States  by  a  man  with 
sufficient  money  in  his  pocket.  Hiram  Sibley, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  whom  the 
United  States  ever  produced,  was,  at  the  time  of 
his  death,  in  1888,  managing  four  hundred  dif- 
ferent farms  in  nine  different  States  of  the 
Union,  conducting  all  through  correspondence, 
and  he  made  it  his  boast,  in  which  undoubtedly 
he  was  honest,  that  from  each  of  these  farms  he 
secured  a  profit.  But  Sibley  was  a  millionaire 
twenty  times  over,  probably  forty  times.  What- 
ever his  farms  needed  they  could  have  at  once, 
and  at  the  lowest  market  price,  for  he  always 
had  cash  to  pay  for  whatever  he  wanted.  Never- 
theless, this  successful  farmer,  this  millionaire, 
this  thorough-going  man  of  business,  said,  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  that  there* was  no  more  pitiable 
character  in  the  United  States  than  the  farmer. 

Nobody  .knows  more  about  any  one  special 
business  than  the  man  who  does  not  have  to 
attend  to  its  details,  so  there  is  a  widespread 
opinion  and  assertion  that  the  trouble  with  the 
fanner  is  that  he  is  improvident.  Men  call  at- 
tention to  the  expenses,  apparently  unnecessary, 
which  he  is  continually  making,  particularly  in 
the  direction  of  comforts  and  even  luxuries  for 
his  family.  But  what  can  the  farmer  do? 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  281 

Everywhere  east  of  the  Mississippi  river  he  is 
near  a  village.  His  children  go  to  school  with 
those  of  the  village.  They  learn  of  comforts 
and  luxuries  to  which  they  are  not  accustomed 
at  home.  They  talk  about  them.  They  think 
about  them.  They  long  for  them.  The  farmer 
himself  is  a  human  being.  Any  one  who  mis- 
takes him  for  a  boor  makes  a  terrible  blunder. 
Whenever  it  is  in  his  power  to  make  his  home 
more  comfortable  he  does  so. with  a- degree  of 
earnestness  that  is  almost  terrible.  He  is 
anxious  to  save  himself  from  the  possible  im- 
putation, by  his  own  children,  of  being  a  less 
careful  provider  than  any  one  with  whom  his 
family  are  on  intimate  terms. 

When  there  comes  a  year  in  which  crops 
promise  well,  the  farmer  will  buy  anything  that 
his  family  may  want,  if  he  can  pay  by  giving 
his  note  of  hand,  to  fall  due  after  the  yield  of 
the  year  is  sold.  Makers  of  sewing-machines, 
organs,  pianos,  venders  of  furniture  and  bric-a- 
brac,  agents  of  subscription-books,  go  first  and 
most  steadily  to  the  farmers  with  their  wares. 
The  farmer  will  give  his  note,  the  vender  will 
find  some  one  who  will  discount  it,  and  in  the 
end  it  must  be  paid  or  compromised.  If  the 
crops  go  well  everything  is  paid — perhaps.  If 
not,  the  farmer  is  deeper  than  ever  in  the  morass 
of  debt.  He  has  the  consolation,  apparently 
slight,  though  it  is  great  to  him,  that  his  family 


282  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

has  enjoyed  some  of  the  benefits  of  villagers 
whom  they  have  envied,  and  that  some  day, 
somehow,  he  will  get  even  with  the  world  for  it. 
Perhaps  this  apparent  extravagance  of  his  will 
keep  his  family  together  longer  than  the  family 
of  his  neighbor  A  or  B  or  C,  from  which  the 
boys  have  drifted  into  village  stores  and  shops, 
and  the  girls  into  domestic  service  in  the  town, 
or  perhaps  into  factories,  all  to  avoid  the  hard 
work,  but  still  more,  the  loneliness  and  barren- 
ness of  the  average  farmer's  home. 

How  helpless  and  unpromising  is  the  present 
condition  of  the  American  farmer  can  best  be 
imagined  by  a  glance  at  the  farming  interest  as 
it  exists  at  present  in  the  New  Bngland  States. 
Here,  within  the  lifetime  of  the  present  genera- 
tion, mills  have  dotted  the  sides  of  every  river 
and  brook  that  has  sufficient  power  to  turn  a 
wheel.  Thousands  of  people  are  gathered 
closely  together  every  few  miles  along  these 
water-courses,  working  in  mills  and  factories,  and 
absolutely  dependant  upon  the  surrounding 
country  for  their  food  supplies.  Yet  in  no  other 
section  of  the  country  are  there  so  many  aban- 
doned farms.  A  short  time  ago  the  twelve  best 
farms  in  the  State  of  Vermont  were  practically 
abandoned  because  it  seemed  impossible  to  their 
owners  to  work  them  without  a  loss,  and  a  bill 
was  introduced  in  the  Legislature  to  exempt  these 
particular  farms — which,  again  I  repeat,  were  the 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  283 

best  in  the  State — to  exempt  these  farms  from 
taxation  so  that  some  one  might  be  persuaded 
to  work  them.  It  is  not  that  the  farmers  have 
no  market  for  what  they  produce,  but  that  the 
finer  farm  products,  or  what  in  the  larger  cities 
are  called  the  products  of  market-gardening,  are 
of  a  nature  so  perishable  that  the  profitable 
promise  of  a  good  soil  may  be  speedily  lost  by 
the  loss  of  the  field  itself  after  gathering. 

Even  near  the  large  city  of  New  York,  where 
some  men  pay  the  interest  on  land  worth  five 
thousand  dollars  per  acre  for  the  sake  of  tilling 
it  for  market-gardening  purposes,  there  are 
thousands  of  acres  of  ground  utterly  neglected 
year  after  year,  as  they  have  been  for  the  past 
twenty  years.  It  is  possible  that  some  of  these 
might  have  been  tilled  to  profit,  but,  with  a  steady 
demand  for  labor  in  the  cities  for  which  sure  and 
frequent  pay  is  guaranteed,  the  farmer's  sons 
and  daughters  left  their  home,  and  the  father 
was  left  without  assistance  and  without  means  to 
hire  help.  Even  had  he  hired  it,  the  results 
would  have  been  the  same — the  balance  on  the 
wrong  side  at  the  end  of  the  year. 

Frequently  the  suggestion  is  made  that  the 
farmers  hould  receive  a  bounty  from  the  Govern- 
ment or  from  his  State  on  special  products,  and 
this  system,  so  far  as  individual  States  are  con- 
cerned, is  in  partial  operation.  The  farmer  him- 
self is  distinctly  of  the  opinion  that,  while  legis- 


284  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

lation  provides  special  relief  and  assistance  for 
nearly  every  other  class  in  the  industrial  world, 
he  should  not  be  neglected.  When  he  begins  to 
demand  such  assistance,  as  he  is  now  quite  will- 
ing to  do,  there  will  be  before  the  public  a  ques- 
tion of  greater  magnitude  than  any  labor  prob- 
lem which  has  yet  appeared.  Special  legislation 
has  an  unpopular  sound,  but  the  fact  exists,  as 
any  follower  of  Congressional  and  legislative  pro- 
ceedings well  knows. 

The  granger  movement  in  the  West  was  the 
initial  of  this  attempt  at  improving  the  farmer's 
condition.  Like  other  great  popular  movements, 
it  began  with  a  sudden  impulse,  in  which  there 
was  more  earnestness  than  intelligence  ;  yet  any 
observer  of  the  necessities  of  the  farmer  and  the 
management  of  the  railways  knows  that  there 
was  a  substantial  basis  of  sense  to  it.  For  a 
great  many  years  the  railways  took  the  lion's 
share  of  the  farm's  yield,  on  the  plea  that  it  cost 
that  proportion  of  the  value  of  the  crop  to  move 
corn  or  wheat  or  pork  to  market.  Why  it  took 
so  large  an  amount  is  well  known  in  the  case  of 
many  roads,  which  by  watering  their  stock  or 
subsidizing  construction  companies  were  capital- 
ized at  several  times  their  value.  In  the  future 
efforts  of  the  farmer  to  secure  recognition  and 
proper  compensation  for  his  service,  the  factors 
of  the  problem  may  not  be  so  distinct,  but,  un- 
less something  is  done  in  the  direction  of  legisla- 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES.  285 

tive  assistance,  the  farms  of  the  West  must  in 
time  be  deserted  as  largely  as  those  of  the  east- 
ern States,  in  which  there  are  now  thousands  of 
farms  in  which  not  only  the  land,  bnt  the  build- 
ings, are  without  occupants,  and  are  at  the  service 
of  anyone  who  may  be  fool  enough  to  occupy 
them — that  is  the  farmer's  way  of  putting  it. 

It  has  frequently  been  suggested  that  the 
farmer  could  save  largely  from  the  financial 
results  of  his  year's  work  by  participating  in  co- 
operative movements  for  the  supply  of  stores  and 
other  necessities  of  his  family  on  his  farm.  It 
may  not  be  known  to  theorists  that  this  sugges- 
tion has  nothing  new  in  it.  It  occurred  to  the 
farmer  in  hundreds  of  counties,  and  he  endeav- 
ored to  act  upon  it.  But  what  can  a  man  do  in 
the  way  of  purchasing  from  first  hands,  who  has 
no  capital  with  which  to  purchase?  Farmers' 
stores  and  farmers'  clubs  were  tried,  to  a  large 
extent,  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  all  over  the  States 
which  now  are  the  most  populous  section  of  the 
Mississippi  valley.  Sometimes  the  effort  re- 
sulted in  the  establishment  of  depots  of  supply 
for  farmers  alone,  but  a  single  year  of  bad  crops, 
whether  caused  by  drought  or  insect  pests  or  over- 
flows, or  any  other  cause  entirely  outside  of  the  con- 
trol of  the  farmer,  would  cause  the  ruin  of  any 
establishment  which  chanced  to  be  started  with 
capital  sufficient  only  for  a  little  while. 

As  before  stated,  and  as  must  be  kept  in  mind 


286  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

in  each  and  in  all  considerations  of  the  farmer's 
lot  and  the  farmer's  future,  the  agriculturist  of 
the  United  States  is  almost  always  a  man  with- 
out capital,  and  a  man  whose  constant  struggle 
is  to  be  equal  by  his  output  to  his  daily  demands. 
When  a  farmer's  store  failed,  the  deficiency  had 
to  be  made  up  in  cash,  even  if  some  of  the  back- 
ers had  to  sell  their  estates.     Bankruptcy  pro- 
ceedings or  "arrangements  "  with  creditors  were 
not  easy.     It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it 
would  be  far  easier,  in  most  parts  of  the  United 
States,  to  sell  a  white  elephant  or  a  million-dollar 
diamond  than  to  turn  a  farm  into  cash  at  short 
notice,  although  the  seller  were  willing  to  sub- 
mit to  a  ruinous  sacrifice.    There  are  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  farmers  in  the  better  and  more  fully 
settled  States,  who  for  years  have  had  their  estates 
in  the  market,  and  been  willing  and  anxious  to 
sell  at  a  loss,  yet  have  been  utterly  unable  to  find 
a  purchaser,  except  among   men  of  their  own 
class,  who  had  no  money  to  pay  in  advance  and 
who  could  simply  offer  a  mortgage  as  security 
for  future  payment,  and  from  which  mortgage,  in 
case  of  default  on  interest  or  principal,  nothing 
could  be  obtained  for  a  year  or  more,  and  even 
then  only  after  proceedings  most  uncomfortable 
to  institute  and  likely  only  to  result  in  a  terrible 
sacrifice  to  the  creditor.     The  number  of  men 
who  are  "  land  poor  "  in  the  agricultural  districts 
of  the  United  States  is  almost  beyond  computa- 


THE  FARMER'S  TROUBLES. 

tion.  The  man  who  has  a  farm  of  two  or  three 
hundred  acres,  nominally  valued  at  a  hundred 
dollars  per  acre,  is  supposed  to  be  worth  twenty 
or  thirty  thousand  dollars  and  quite  good  for  all 
his  debts.  The  truth  is  that  often  he  suffers 
more  for  lack  of  some  small  necessity  for  which 
cash  must  be  paid  than  the  city  mechanic  or  la- 
borer, who  receives  only  a  few  dollars  per  week 
for  his  services. 

Why  doesn't  he  borrow  from  a  bank,  giving  a 
mortgage  for  security  ?  Bless  you,  no  bank  that 
would  lend  to  farmers,  on  the  risks  and  time  usu- 
ally necessary,  could  continue  in  business. 

The  suggestion  may  be  startling,  but  still  it  is 
practical,  that  it  may  yet  be  necessary,  for  the 
proper  feeding  of  the  community,  that  farming, 
like  the  policing  of  cities  and  the  maintenance 
of  an  army  and  the  conduct  of  the  postal  de- 
partment, shall  be  done  at  the  expense  of  the 
government.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  method 
in  Egypt  in  the  days  of  Pharaoh  and  of  Joseph, 
his  steward,  and  America  may  yet  have  to  revert 
to  it.  The  Government  will  have  either  to  man- 
age the  farms  or  assist  the  farmers ;  the  people 
may  choose  which  shall  be  done. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    RUM   POWER. 

MOST  people  have  heard  of  the  man  who  in  a 
difficulty  with  a  vicious  bull  finally  got  the 
animal  by  the  tail.  He  could  not  hurt  the 
brute,  yet  he  did  not  dare  to  Jet  go,  so  he  was 
slung  about  most  unmercifully,  and  at  last  ac- 
counts he  was  still  being  slung.  The  bull  was 
in  the  wrong,  the  man  in  the  right;  still  he 
had  the  animal  only  by  the  tail :  instead  of 
quieting  or  frightening  the  brute,  he  merely 
made  him  angry  and  was  severely  punished  for 
his  well-meant  efforts. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  in  their  con- 
test with  the  rum  power  are  in  the  position  of 
the  man  with  the  bull.  The  rum  power  is  in 
the  wrong ;  the  people  are  in  the  right,  yet  they 
have  the  monster  only  by  the  tail,  so  they  only 
worry  him  and  make  misery  for  themselves. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  recount  the  harm  done 
individuals  and  families  by  the  liquor  traffic. 
Almost  every  charge  that  the  most  rabid  prohi- 
bitionist makes  can  be  substantiated  by  a  thou- 
sand men  who  sell  liquor,  aside  from  what  total 
abstainers  may  know  or  believe  or  imagine. 

288 


KI.MHK.XCK    HOX.    POTTER    PAI.MK.K. 


THE  RUM  POWER.  289 

Bishop  Warren,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  is  not  an  excitable  man,  but  he  does  not 
overstate  the  truth  at  all  when  he  says  :  "  Innu- 
merable are  the  crimes  of  dolorous  and  accursed 
ages,  and  a  fruitful  source  of  them  all  is  in- 
temperance. It  robs  the  body  of  its  strength, 
the  senses  of  their  delicacy,  the  mind  of  its 
acuteness,  the  spirit  of  its  life.  It  fires  every 
passion,  makes  every  base  appetite  the  master 
of  mind  and  will,  leaves  man  an  utter  wreck. 
Of  its  work  there  are  frightful  statistics  of  rob- 
beries, arsons,  murders,  insanities,  and  curses  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generations ;  but  there  are 
no  statistics  that  can  measure  the  heartbreaks 
of  wives,  hungers  of  children,  disappointments 
of  fond  parents,  and  physical  inheritance  of  de- 
terioration and  unconquerable  appetite.  It  is 
the  one  great,  stark,  crying  curse  of  our  race 
and  age.  It  is  the  personal  foe  of  every  parent, 
Sunday-school  teacher,  and  preacher  of  right- 


eousness." 


Miss  Frances  Willard,  who  is  doing  more  suc- 
cessful temperance  work  than  any  man  who  is  in 
the  same  field  at  present,  states  the  case  as  ear- 
nestly as  Bishop  Warren,  and  with  the  extra  force 
which  figures  always  give — figures  which  no  one 
contradicts  because  no  one  can.  She  says:  "No 
man  of  the  smallest  intelligence  can  be  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  the  saloon  is  to-day  the  chief 
destructive  force  in  society ;  that  the  cumulative 


290  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

testimony  of  judge,  jury,  and  executive  officers 
of  the  law  declares  that  fifty  per  cent,  of  the 
idiocy  and  lunacy,  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  crimes, 
and  ninety  per  cent  of  the  pauperism  come  from 
strong  drink ;  that  the  saloon  holds  the  balance 
of  power  in  almost  every  city  of  ten  thousand 
inhabitants ;  that  it  is  the  curse  of  workingmen 
and  the  sworn  foe  of  home." 

It  isn't  necessary,  either,  to  call  attention  to 
the  harm  done  free  institutions  at  election  times 
by  the  influence  of  rum.  The  late  "  Petroleum" 
Nasby,  whom  all  of  us  knew  for  a  lovable  fellow 
and  an  able  editor,  once  consumed  a  gallon  of 
whiskey  a  day  on  the  average.  When  he 
stopped  drinking  he  wrote  a  series  of  temperance 
editorials,  concluding  with  the  words  "  Paralyze 
the  rum  power."  "  Pete  "  had  been  in  politics 
himself:  he  knew  what  the  "power "of  rum 
was,  and  how  it  was  used. 

The  demoralizing  effect  of  plenty  of  liquor  is 
so  well  known  that  the  first  duty  of  a  local  cam- 
paign manager,  no  matter  of  which  party,  is  to 
make  proper  arrangements  with  rum-shops  for 
supplying  free  drinks  for  the  purpose  of  changing 
voters'  views.  The  man  who  has  opinions,  no 
matter  what  they  may  be,  is  quite  likely  to 
modify  them  if  asked  when  he  is  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  few  drinks ;  and  if  his  liquid  conso- 
lation is  to  be  supplied  at  the  expense  of  some 
other  man,  the  opinions  of  the  two  are  likely  to 


THE   RUM   POWER.  291 

be  in  entire  accord  before  the  transaction  is  con- 
cluded. Votes  are  easier  purchased  with  rum 
than  with  money,  no  matter  how  large  the  sum 
that  may  be  at  the  disposal  of  any  political  boss 
or  ward  committee.  The  public  heard,  a  few 
years  ago,  to  its  horror,  that  an  important  State 
had  been  carried  for  the  victorious  party  by  a 
general  distribution  of  new  two-dollar  bills. 
The  truth  is,  as  any  one  can  learn  by  visiting 
the  districts  which  then  were  close  in  the  State 
alluded  to,  that  a  great  deal  more  money  than 
the  entire  number  of  two-dollar  bills  amounted 
to  had  previously  been  expended  in  rum-shops 
to  which  men  who  were  willing  to  listen  to  what 
was  called  "  a  fair  presentation  of  conflicting 
views''  could  be  persuaded  to  come.  Liquor  is 
cheaper  in  the  western  States  than  in  large 
cities.  It  is  worse,  too.  A  little  of  it  goes  a 
long  way,  and  the  man  who  will  spend  an  even- 
ing in  a  rum-shop  in  a  rural  locality,  is  equal  to 
any  enormity,  compared  with  which  an  apparent 
change  of  sentiment  on  political  subjects  is  a 
mere  trifle.  As  Channing  used  to  say,  "  Rum  out- 
wits alike  the  teacher,  the  man  of  business,  the 
patriot,  and  the  legislator." 

Stepping  aside  from  sentiment,  and  coming- 
down  to  practical  facts,  Rev.  Theodore  Cuyler 
says  that  the  liquor  question  "  enters  more  im- 
mediately into  the  enrichment  or  the  impoverish- 
ment of  the  national  resources  than  any  question 


292  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OE  THEE." 

of  tariff  or  currency.  More  money  is  touched 
by  the  drink  traffic  and  the  effects  of  the  traffic 
than  by  any  other  trade  known  among  men. 
The  tax  upon  national  resources  levied  by  the 
bottle  is  far  heavier  than  the  combined  taxes  for 
every  object  of  public  well-being." 

Statistics  of  drink  are  undoubtedly  more 
appalling  than  those  of  the  most  bloody  and 
senseless  war  that  the  world  ever  knew.  Some 
that  are  published  are  entirely  untrustworthy ;  a 
head  for  reform  does  not  always  mean  a  head 
for  figures;  so  figures  are  often  made  to  lie,  like 
tombstones.  But  the  truth  is  bad  enough.  It  is 
plain  to  any  man  who  knows  anything  about 
current  values  that  the  price  of  a  glass  of  poor 
beer  will  buy  a  pound  of  good  bread,  and  the 
price  of  a  glass  of  best  whiskey  will  buy  a 
pound  of  the  best  meat.  Yet  a  great  deal  more 
money  goes  for  beer  and  whiskey  than  for  bread 
and  meat. 

Why? 

Depraved  appetite,  answers  the  professional 
moralist.  This  is  the  veriest  nonsense,  although 
it  is  the  commonest  of  the  reasons  that  are  given 
for  inordinate  indulgence  in  stimulants.  An  ap- 
petite, properly  speaking,  must  be  of  a  fixed  na- 
ture. There  is  no  drunkard  alive  who  has  a  fixed 
appetite  for  liquor.  The  depraved  appetite,  so- 
called,  is  an  occasional  manifestation  of  the  influ- 
ence of  long  indulgence  in  alcoholic  stimulants, 


THE   RUM   POWER.  293 

but  it  is  no  more  possible  to  prolong  it  and  make 
it  a  fixed  condition  of  a  man's  life  than  it  is  for 
a  human  being  to  make  a  voyage  to  the  moon. 

The  first  purpose  of  drink,  to  any  one  who 
is  beginning  to  use  liquor,  is  to  "  feel  good,"  and 
there  is  no  denying  that  this  is  a  general  longing 
in  every  grade  of  humanity,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest.  Most  human  beings  of  the  lower  order 
are  full  of  physical  defects,  all  the  way  from 
those  of  the  muscles  and  joints  to  those  of  the 
vital  organs  and  nerves.  If  you  ask  the  south- 
ern field-hand  how  he  feels,  you  may  safely  bet 
that  he  will  answer,  "  pooty  porely,"  and  to  getre- 
lief  from  his  aches  and  pains  he  resorts  to  liquor, 
whenever  he  can  get  it.  The  Indian  is  another 
specimen  of  the  man  who  wants  to ( '  feel  good. ' '  He 
is  supposed  to  be  physically  a  splendid  child  of 
nature,  but  he  seldom  is  without  some  serious 
functional  disorder  or  inherited  curse  of  the  flesh 
which  makes  him  the  willing  slave  of  any  stimu- 
lant he  can  get.  A  great  host  of  unfortu- 
nates who  have  come  to  the  United  States  from 
other  lands  are  practically  in  the  same  condition ; 
starved,  abused,  and  underfed  for  generations 
and  centuries,  a  glass  of  rum  is  to  them  like  the 
touch  of  an  angel,  and  a  jugful  is  the  equiva- 
lent of  a  Ijeavenly  host.  There  is  no  sense  in 
talking  about  "  depraved  appetites  "  when  you 
contemplate  these,  people,  from  whom  come  the 
mass  of  the  rumseller's  customers. 


"  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

The  second  strong  impulse  to  drink  is  like  unto 
the  first ;  it  is  to  "  brace  up."  Human  nature  is 
either  a  dreadfully  weak  machine,  or  one  which 
the  majority  persist  in  overworking.  Men's  en- 
ergies, spurred  by  their  necessities,  too  often  out- 
run their  strength ;  then  stimulation  will  be  re- 
sorted to  if  it  is  at  hand.  It  is  quite  true  to  say 
there  is  more  strength,  and  stimulus  too,  in  a 
loaf  of  bread  or  pound  of  meat  than  in  a  glass 
of  liquor;  but  the  food  works  slowly;  the  liquor 
works  quickly.  There  are  drinkers  almost  in- 
numerable among  the  better  classes,  who  use 
liquor  medicinally,  as  literally  as  other  men  use 
quinine.  Their  liquor  habit  never  is  an  indul- 
gence ;  they  would  as  lieve  take  some  other  stimu- 
lant were  it  equally  convenient  and  effective,  but 
they  do  not  know  of  any ;  neither  do  their  doc- 
tors. 

When  men  feel  the  need  of  stimulation,  yet 
dread  the  use  of  alcohol,  they  will  search  for  help 
somewhere  else.  -  With  the  nominal  decay  of  the 
rum  influence  in  the  United  States  some  years 
ago,  began  the  enormous  sale  of  bitters,  ano- 
dynes, narcotics,  stimulants,  nerve  foods,  brain 
foods,  and  other  nostrums  of  similar  purpose,  with 
which  the  advertising  columns  of  a  great  many 
newspapers,  including  most  of  the  religious  week- 
lies, were  filled,  as  some  are  at  the  present  time. 
In  the  city  of  New  York,  where  there  is  one  rum 
shop  to  every  thirty  families,  it  is  not  a  common 


THK   RUM   POWER.  295 

experience  to  smell  opium  or  chloral  in  the  breath 
of  the  man  next  you  in  church  or  street-car  or 
business  resort.  But  in  the  State  of  Maine, 
which  has  had  more  experience  with  close  pro- 
hibition than  all  the  other  States  of  the  Union 
combined,  it  is  hard  to  go  into  any  community 
of  men  without  being  made  cognizant  of  the  fact 
that  resort  to  these  stimulants  is  quite  common 
in  that  virtuous  State.  I  do  not  say  this  in  con- 
tempt of  Maine's  effort  to  get  rid  of  liquor.  The 
prohibition  movement  in  Maine  has  done  incal- 
culable good  in  some  directions.  There  is  no  other 
State  in  the  Union  in  which  young  men  have 
never  been  invited  into  bar-rooms,  and  do  not 
know  what  public  opportunity  for  drinking  is. 

Do  I  mean  to  say  that  alcoholic  stimulants  are 
absolute  necessities  of  life  ?  No ;  I  do  not,  but — 
don't  underrate  the  meaning  of  that  little  word — 
but  the  majority  of  our  voters  do,  and  majorities 
rule  in  this  country.  There  is  altogether  too 
much  indulgence  and  drunkenness — too  much 
yielding  to  the  desire  to  "  feel  good."  The  use 
of  alcohol  in  large  quantities  has  a  bad  effect 
upon  the  character  and  conduct  of  anyone ;  the 
temperance  men  will  give  you  all  the  dreadful 
statistics  you  like  as  to  the  part  rum  plays  in 
filling  our  jails,  poorhouses  and  insane  asylums, 
and  God  himself  would  shudder  to  tell  us  how 
many  homes  it  ruins — how  many  widows  and 
orphans  it  makes.  On  a  division  of  the  subject 


296  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

which  is  out  of  the  province  of  statisticians, 
physicians  will  admit  that  more  sexual  im- 
morality comes  from  rum  than  all  other  causes 
combined.  There  is  no  fear  of  overstating  the 
aggregate  bad  effects  of  over-indulgence  in  liquor 
— it  is  beyond  the  power  of  words  or  figures  to 
overstate  it. 

Having  admitted  that  the  curse  of  rum  in  the 
United  States  is  quite  as  great  as  any  moralist 
or  pr6hibitionist  has  ever  asserted,  it  follows  that 
some  remedy  is  necessary,  and  the  question 
naturally  occurs,  What  shall  it  be  ? 

The  almost  unanimous  reply  will  be,  Control 
the  demon  by  law.  The  majority  of  law-abiding 
citizens  are  quite  willing  to  admit  that  this 
should  be  done,  but  the  question  arises  and  be- 
comes more  urgent  year  by  year,  What  shall  the 
law  be?  Shall  it  be  in  the  direction  of  prohi- 
bition ?  The  experience  of  several  States,  Maine 
no  less  than  others,  is  overwhelmingly  to  the 
effect  that  prohibition  does  not  prohibit.  Per- 
haps not  as  much  liquor  is  consumed  in  Maine 
as  if  there  were  open  bars  in  every  town.  But 
anyone  who  is  fond  of  a  glass  knows  by  experi- 
ence that  it  is  quite  as  easy  to  gratify  his  tastes 
in  the  State  of  Maine  as  it  is  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  Worse  still,  the  stranger  going  from 
another  State  to  Maine,  if  he  has  any  acquaint- 
ances at  all  in  the  prohibition  State,  is  so  im- 
portuned by  hospitable  souls,  who  wish  to  make 


THK   RUM   POWER.  21)7 

him  feel  entirely  at  home,  and  as  comfortable  as 
he  might  be  if  he  were  in  his  native  city  or 
village,  and  has  set  before  him  liquors  in  such 
variety,  that  he  generally  goes  to  bed  with  a 
heavier  head  and  awakes  in  the  morning  with  a 
harder  headache  than  if  he  had  been  in  the 
worst  rum-cursed  portion  of  the  country. 

Have  I  heard  the  arguments  in  favor  of  pro- 
hibition ?  Well,  can  anyone  help  having  heard 
them  ?  No  project  ever  placed  before  the  public 
has  been  more  earnestly  and  persistently  advo- 
cated. But  where  is  the  sense  of  demanding 
a  law  against  which  you  know  the  majority  of 
the  people  will  be  arrayed  ?  Suppose  during 
momentary  enthusiasm  a  State  carries  a  prohi- 
bition law  by  a  small  majority,  some  drinking 
men  themselves  being  constrained  by  their 
neighbors  to  vote  for  the  law  and  against  their 
own  inclinations,  how  is  the  law  to  be  main- 
tained? By  public  opinion.  Who  creates 
public  opinion?  The  majority.  But  the  ma- 
jority drink,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  for  some 
generations  to  come,  unless  all  signs  fail.  Every 
State  has  a  law  against  bribery  and  corruption 
of  voters.  Is  bribery  or  corruption  less  common 
than  before  the  law  passed?  No;  it  becomes 
worse  year  by  year.  Why?  Because  public 
opinion  dare  not  and  will  not  support  the  law. 
Personal  interest,  expressed  in  party  feeling, 
winks  at  its  violation — not  all  the  while,  but 


298  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

merely  every  time  there  is  anything  to  be  gained 
by  it. 

Both  sides  of  the  prohibition  question  were 
well  put  in  a  recent  conversation  between  a 
prominent  prohibitionist  and  Bishop  Foss,  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  who  has  worked  industriously 
for  years  to  decrease  the  rum  influence,  but 
believes  restriction  is  the  only  means  practical. 
"  Bishop,"  said  the  prohibitionist,  "  if  you  saw 
a  rattlesnake  in  the  street,  biting  people  and 
destroying  human  lives,  would  you  kill  it,  or  try 
to  pen  it  up  ?  "  The  bishop  replied,  "  If  I  had 
been  chasing  it  up  and  down  the  street  for  thirty 
years,  trying  to  kill  it  but  never  succeeding  in 
doing  anything  but  make  it  uglier,  I  would  con- 
sider myself  lucky  if  I  had  a  chance  to  pen  it 
up." 

Then  should  law  take  the  form  of  restriction  ? 
Yes  ;  but  immediately  the  law-makers  discover 
in  the  words  of  some  satirist  of  the  past  genera- 
tion, that  a  great  many  men  can  be  found  in 
favor  of  a  certain  provision  in  law,  who  are  against 
its  enforcement  by  any  method  that  is  suggested 
in  the  form  of  a  bill  before  any  Legislature  or 
Congress.  A  restrictive  measure  immediately 
affects  a  great  many  business  interests.  Moral- 
ists would  like  the  sale  of  liquor  restricted. 
Well,  so  would  a  great  many  liquor  dealers.  If 
a  poll  were  taken  of  the  wholesale  dealers  in  liq- 
uors in  the  United  States,  regardless  of  section 


THE   RUM   POWER.  299 

or  environment,  it  would  be  overwhelmingly  in 
favor  of  limiting  the  number  of  rum-shops,  and 
compelling  the  sale  of  only  the  better  class  of 
goods.  Perhaps  the  wholesale  dealers  are  not 
philanthropists,  but  their  work  is  in  the  direction 
of  philanthrophy  in  the  respect  that  they  make 
more  money  on  old  and  well-refined  liquors,  and 
consequently  would  prefer  that  nothing  else 
should  be  sold. 

Restriction  can  be  attained  in  no  other  way  ex- 
cept through  license  laws,  and  upon  these  at  once 
the  entire  public  agree  to  disagree.  A  license 
law  that  would  regulate  the  traffic  in  a  large  city 
would  be  utterly  destructive  of  the  entire  retail 
liquor  interests  of  the  country  districts.  Conse- 
quently the  country  dealers,  through  their  rep- 
resentatives in  Legislatures,  protest  strongly 
against  any  such  enactment  as  the  famous  Scott 
bill,  which  was  of  such  great  service  in  restrict- 
ing the  liquor  trade  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  The 
license  exacted  from  a  retailer  in  a  large  city 
would  consume  the  entire  profit  of  a  country 
dealer,  even  if  he  were  the  only  one  in  his  town. 
City  prices  and  country  prices  are  different.  It 
may  be  also  stated  upon  undoubted  authority,  for 
the  information  of  prohibitionists  and  other  gen- 
tlemen who  have  never  looked  into  the  practical 
details  of  the  liquor  trade  for  themselves,  that 
the  countryman's  drink  compares  with  that  of 


300        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

the  city  man  about  as  a  full  bath-tub  does  to  a 
basin  of  water. 

After  restriction,  and  lowest,  though  not  least 
important,  among  the  list  of  reformatory  meas- 
ures, comes  the  principle  of  regulation.  Can  the 
liquor  trade  be  regulated?  Should  it  be  regu- 
lated in  the  interest  of  morality  and  the  public 
safety?  Yes.  We  regulate  everything  else — 
absolutely  everything — that  affects  the  safety  of 
humanity.  We  stipulate  by  law  or  special  li- 
cense where  dynamite  factories  shall  be  located, 
how  dynamite  shall  be  transported,  where  it  shall 
be  stored,  how  it  shall  be  sold,. and  every  other 
stage  of  the  trade  in  this  dangerous  yet  useful 
article  of  commerce.  We  regulate  the  trade  in 
gunpowder ;  there  are  very  few  States  in  which 
any  minor  is  allowed  to  purchase  any  quantity 
of  gunpowder  or  any  other  explosive.  We  regu- 
late the  sales  of  poisonous  medicines,  no  matter 
how  useful  they  may  be,  forbidding  the  chemist 
to  sell  them  except  on  a  physician's  order, 
and  we  make  him  keep  them  specially  classi- 
fied, and  label  every  package  or  bottle  or  box 
of  them  which  he  sells,  and  to  record  the  name 
of  the  purchaser.  We  regulate  even  the  speed 
of  horses  in  large  cities ;  although  every  man 
is  supposed  to  be  able  to  take  his  ease  and  pleas- 
ure with  a  horse  and  carriage  if  he  can  afford 
them  or  hire  them,  in  all  large  communities  it 
is  required  that  he  shall  not  drive  at  more  than 


THK   RUM   POWER.  301 

a  certain  pace.  None  of  these  regulations  are 
regarded  as  abridgements  of  personal  liberty. 
All  of  them  are  admitted  to  be  necessary  pre- 
cautions for  the  good  of  the  entire  community. 

Unfortunately  the  principal  opposition  to  regu- 
lation, which  is  the  easiest  and  most  practicable 
method  of  reducing  the  dangers  of  the  rum 
traffic,  comes  not  from  rum-drinkers  them- 
selves, but  from  those  who  never  consume  any 
liquor — I  mean  the  prohibitionists.  Their  prin- 
ciple seems  to  be  the  old,  big-hearted,  but  ut- 
terly impracticable  one  of  "  a  whole  loaf  or 
none."  In  a  number  of  recent  local  and  State 
elections,  in  which  the  regulation  of  the  liquor 
traffic  was  concerned,  the  prohibitionists  usually 
voted  with  the  advocates  of  free  rum,  not  that 
they  love  liquor  or  liquor  dealers,  but  that  unless 
they  could  have  their  own  way  they  preferred  to 
leave  things  as  they  were  before.  Their  pur- 
pose, as  nearly  as  it  can  be  discovered,  was  that 
the  more  fearful  condition  society  could  be  brought 
to  by  the  free  use  of  rum,  the  sooner  would  so- 
ciety protest  strongly  against  it  and  take  "  the 
only  true  view,"  this  being  the  prohibitionist's 
modest  way  of  putting  his  own  opinion.  The 
Russian  Nihilists,  whom  everybody  detests,  work 
on  the  same  principle; — things  can't  be  better 
until  they  have  first  been  as  bad  as  they  can. 

The  present  influence  of  rum  in  the  United 
States  upon  morals,  manners,  society,  and  poli- 


302  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

tics,  must  be  charged  upon  those  who  have  la- 
bored most  earnestly  to  lessen  it.  Again  I  allude 
to  the  prohibitionists.  They  have  discouraged 
every  practical  effort  to  abate  the  evils  of  the  use 
of  liquor.  They  have  regarded  all  restrictive  or 
regulative  measures  about  as  Mr.  Garrison  once 
regarded  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  in 
its  relations  to  slavery — as  a  compact  with  the 
devil.  The  time  must  come  when  it  will  be  not 
only  unfashionable  but  indecorous  and  degrading 
for  any  man  to  use  liquor,  except  in  cases  of 
sickness ;  but  when  that  time  comes  the  people 
will  owe  no  thanks  whatever  to  those  who  have 
talked  most  against  the  influence  of  rum.  Once 
more,  and  for  the  last  time,  I  allude  to  the  pro- 
hibitionists. 


CHAPTER  X. 

NATIONAL  DEFENCE. 

IF  Heaven  helps  only  those  who  help  them- 
selves the  United  States  will  be  deplorably  help- 
less the  first  time  they  fall  into  difficulty  with 
any  foreign  power. 

Ever  since  the  late  civil  war  ended  the  general 
of  the  army  has  annually  given  us  earnest  and 
intelligent  warning  as  to  the  incomplete  state  of 
our  fortifications,  and  the  inability  of  our  artillery 
for  offensive  and  defensive  operations  against  the 
improved  armaments  with  which  other  nations 
have  amply  supplied  themselves.  The  admiral 
of  the  navy  has  made  similar  reports.  For  a  little 
while  this  looked  like  unnecessary  precaution  or 
what  a  distinguished  Congressman  once  called  old 
woman's  fussiness.  Hadn't  we  just  triumphed 
over  the  largest  armies  that  had  been  brought 
into  the  field,  except  by  ourselves,  in  half  a  cen- 
tury ?  Hadn't  we  organized  a  navy  out  of  noth- 
ing, armed  it  splendidly,  and  done  with  it  what- 
ever was  desirable  that  the  naval  power  of  the 
country  should  attempt  ?  To  be  sure,  our  forts 
were  few,  but  so  were  our  harbors.  The  construe- 

303 


"  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE/* 

tion  of  some  of  the  harbor  forts  in  the  United 
States  was  admired  by  the  engineers  of  all  the 
other  civilized  powers  only  thirty  years  ago,  and 
the  public  knew  of  it.  To  afterward  be  told  that 
these  splendid  and  expensive  structures  were  of 
no  use,  that  they  were  inadequate,  that  two  or 
three  guns  on  a  second  or  third-rate  ship  of  some 
second  or  third-rate  naval  power  could  knock 
them  to  pieces  would  have  been  humiliating  had 
it  not  been  enraging. 

Attempts  were  made  from  time  to  time,  in  the 
earlier  years  following  the  close  of  the  war,  to 
keep  our  military  and  naval  establishment  in  fine 
condition.  We  had  admirable  staff  departments, 
and  large  "plants"  for  the  manufacture  of  almost 
everything  required  in  ordnance  and  ammunition. 
We  had  the  nucleus  of  a  navy  and  army  from 
which  a  peace  establishment  unequalled  by  any 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  might  have  been  selected. 
But  we  let  it  all  go.  No  such  spectacle  as  the  , 
disbandment  and  disappearance  of  the  great 
armies  of  the  North  and  South  was  ever  before 
seen,  and  historians  have  glorified  in  this.  Sol- 
diers, however,  whose  opinions  we  may  yet  be 
called  upon  to  respect,  regarded  the  spectacle  in 
entirely  a  different  light.  We  had  once  before 
been  caught — by  England — napping  in  a  most 
unexpected  way,  said  these  old  fellows ;  we  paid 
dearly  for  our  neglect ;  but  now  we  are  repeating 
exactly  the  same  blunder.  Excellent  men  who 


NATIONAL  DEFENCE.  305 

were  willing  to  remain  in  the  service  were  allowed 
to  go,  material  of  every  kind  was  disposed  of  at 
auction  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  nothing  was 
provided  to  take  its  place.  The  numerical  force 
of  the  standing  army  was  reduced  more  and  more 
until  even  the  Indians  held  us  in  contempt.  In- 
dian massacres  on  the  border  have  frequently 
been  charged  to  the  rascality  or  duplicity  of  the 
white  men.  Undoubtedly  the  Indians  have  had 
a  great  many  provocations,  but,  so  far  as  restraint 
through  fear  is  concerned,  they  have  been  sub- 
jected to  very  little  of  this  very  necessary  disci- 
pline. Large  bands  of  armed  Indians  have  been 
able  to  keep  brave  but  small  detachments  of 
United  States  troops  within  small  camps  or  forts, 
to  isolate  them  and  taunt  them  for  days  in  suc- 
cession, to  steal  cattle,  murder  settlers,  desolate 
the  country,  all  because  they  had  contempt  for 
an  army  which  was  so  small  that  it  never  could 
oppose  more  than  a  handful  to  any  Indian  raid 
which  might  suddenly  be  made. 

Just  look  at  some  of  the  warnings  we  have  had 
during  recent  years.  In  his  last  report  as  com- 
mander of  the  army  (1887),  General  Sheridan 
said :  '  The  condition  of  our  sea-coast  defences 
has  continued  to  deteriorate  during  the  year,  and 
the  majority  of  them,  both  as  regards  the  mate- 
rial of  which  they  are  built,  their  location  and 
present  armament,  would  prove  of  but  little  real 
service  in  time  of  foreign  war." 


306  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

What  was  done  about  it?     Nothing. 

General  Sheridan  further  advised  that  we 
should  adopt  some  modern  magazine  rifle  for  our 
soldiers,  as  all  foreign  nations  had  refitted  their 
armies  with  these  guns. 

What  was  done  about  it  ?     Nothing. 

General  Sheridan  further  said :  "  I  am  strongly 
in  favor  of  the  general  movement  extending  all 
possible  aid  to  the  National  Guard  of  the  different 
States,  as  they  constitute  a  body  of  troops  that  in 
any  great  emergency  would  form  an  important 
part  of  our  military  force." 

What  was  done  about  it  ?     Nothing. 

Before  Sheridan,  General  Sherman  made  clear, 
vigorous,  sensible  protests  every  year  against  our 
neglect  to  maintain  good  defences,  but  nothing 
came  of  it  in  the  way  of  improvement.  After 
Sheridan's  death,  General  Schofield,  the  ranking 
officer  of  the  army,  continued  the  good  work ; 
only  two  or  three  months  ago  General  Schofield 
said  in  his  report  that  the  new  guns  we  are  mak- 
ing will  make  an  increase  in  the  number  of  ar- 
tillerists indispensable,  and  he  urged  the  forma- 
tion of  two  new  regiments  at  once.  Does  any  one 
expect  to  see  them  ? 

Admiral  Porter  has  been  hammering  away 
valiantly  for  years  at  Congressional  thick-heads 
for  the  neglect  of  the  navy,  but  it  was  not  until 
the  late  Samuel  J.  Tildeii  gave  his  own  party  a 
blast  on  the  subject  did  we  begin  to  construct  a 


NATIONAL  DEFENCE.  307 

navy.  Even  now  there  is  persistent  halting; 
Congress,  regarding  the  navy,  is  like  the  girl  of 
a  certain  class  regarding  her  suitors — so  anxious 
to  get  the  very  best  that  she  is  in  danger  of  not 
getting  any. 

Both  political  parties  seem  agreed  on  the  re- 
duction of  the  regular  army  to  the  smallest  pos- 
sible numerical  force.  While  the  Republicans 
were  in  power  some  officers  of  the  army  used  to 
hope  for  a  change  of  administration,  and  conse- 
quently change  of  party  at  the  head  of  affairs  so 
that  the  army  might  "have  a  show."  But  when 
the  Democrats  came  in  with  President  Cleveland, 
there  was  no  perceptible  difference,  except  that 
there  was  more  trouble  than  before  in  obtaining 
ammunition  with  which  to  salute  the  flag  morn- 
ing and  evening.  The  army,  small  as  its  maxi- 
mum strength  is  according  to  law,  has  not  been 
full  in  years,  and  there  are  grave  doubts  among 
some  of  the  higher  officers  of  the  army  as  to 
whether  it  can  be  made  full. 

Why  ?  Because  men  desert — run  away  at  a 
rate  unheard  of  in  the  army  of  any  other  nation. 
General  Schofield,  in  his  annual  report,  says 
there  were  two  thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  desertions  last  year — more  than  ten  per  cent, 
of  the  entire  army  !  Fear  of  punishment  seems 
to  have  no  effect,  and  General  Schofield  felt 
obliged  to  recommend  that  a  full  half  of  each  en- 
listed man's  pay  shall  be  retained  until  the  end 


308  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

of  the  period  of  enlistment.  Isn't  this  a  humili- 
ating state  of  affairs  for  the  army  of  the  freest 
nation  in  the  world  ? 

There  must  be  serious  reason  for  this  anoma- 
lous condition  of  the  military  force.  Our  soldiers 
are  better  fed,  better  clothed,  and  far  better  paid 
than  those  of  any  other  country.  An  American 
soldier  receives,  outside  of  his  allowance  for  ra- 
tions and  clothing,  more  money  in  a  day  than  the 
British  soldier  can  show  to  his  credit  in  a  week. 
His  term  of  enlistment  is  shorter  and  his  possi- 
bilities of  duty  are  pleasanter,  or  should  seem  so 
to  men  of  intelligence.  Yet  to  enlist,  which  is 
the  first  suggestion  that  presents  itself  to  a  man 
out  of  work  in  a  foreign  country,  seems  to  be  the 
least  popular  in  the  United  States. 

Undoubtedly  one  reason  is,  that  among  the  in- 
ducements to  enlist,  we  are  entirely  lacking  in 
anything  that  approaches  the  glory  of  war.  Our 
only  enemies  are  Indians,  the  meanest,  most  sneak- 
ing, most  treacherous  foemen  that  any  civilized  na- 
tion is  fighting  at  the  present  time,  and  there  is  less 
glory  in  capturing  one  of  them  or  a  great  many 
of  them  than  in  any  taking  of  prisoners  in  ordi- 
nary war.  The  soldiers  of  other  countries  see 
at  least  a  great  deal  of  the  pomp  of  war,  if  very 
little  of  its  circumstance.  Showy  dresses,  fre- 
quent parades,  numerous  occasions  of  display, 
encampment  in  the  vicinity  of  large  cities  and 
towns,  freedom  to  go  about  and  spend  money 


NATIONAL    DEFENCE.  309 

among  civilized  people,  are  all  inducements  to 
men  to  join  and  remain  in  a  foreign  army  at  the 
present  time. 

But  what  inducement  is  offered  the  Ameri- 
can soldier  ?  He  is  put  in  a  camp  of  instruction 
as  soon  as  he  enlists,  and  sent  to  the  border  as 
soon  as  he  is  fit  for  service.  The  border  is  a  de- 
lightful country,  according  to  dime  novels,  but 
no  sober  man  with  his  eyes  open  finds  it  any- 
thing but  dull.  It  is  a  sparsely  settled  country, 
uninteresting  to  every  one  but  the  speculator  and 
hunter.  The  soldier  has  nothing  to  speculate 
with,  and  is  very  seldom  allowed  to  go  hunting. 
He  is  kept  within  narrow  bounds,  sees  almost  no 
one  but  his  own  officers  and  comrades,  has  noth- 
ing but  camp  duty  to  do,  except  when  on  long 
scouts  outside  camp  lines,  or,  still  more  unpleas- 
ant, when  detailed  for  police,  gardening,  or  other 
laborious  duties  within  the  camp.  It  naturally 
occurs  to  the  American  soldier  that  if  he  is  to 
work  eight  hours  a  day  in  building  houses  or 
stables,  or  digging  wells,  or  throwing  up  em- 
bankments, or  ploughing  the  soil,  or  hoeing  gar- 
den crops  for  the  benefit  of  the  post,  that  he 
might  as  well  be  doing  the  same  sort  of  work  in 
the  States  at  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  and  have 
his  freedom  between  sunset  and  sunrise. 

Except  that  police  precautions  against  the  In- 
dians are  still  necessary,  the  only  excuse  that  any 
one,  except  the  military  officer,  seems  inclined  to 


310  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

discover  for  the  existence  of  our  army  at  all,  is 
that  we  should  have  a  nucleus  of  a  military  es- 
tablishment in  case  of  necessity.  But  what  is 
the  nucleus  worth  ?  Two  thousand  officers, 
among  whom  undoubtedly  are  a  number  of  the 
best  educated  soldiers  in  the  world,  constitute 
nearly  all  of  our  military  force  upon  whom  we 
could  confidently  rely  in  case  of  trouble.  The 
enlisted  man,  taking  him  as  an  average  charac- 
ter, is  practically  worthless  at  a  time  when  the 
enlargement  of  the  army  may  suddenly  become 
necessary.  .  In  France  or  Germany  officers  may 
at  any  time  be  selected  from  the  ranks.  Of 
course  the  systems  of  the  two  countries  differ 
greatly  from  ours.  Conscription  and  the  re- 
quirement that  every  adult  man  shall  serve  a 
portion  of  his  time  in  the  army,  makes  a  soldier 
of  every  one". 

But  is  it  not  rather  significant  that  the  better 
class  of  men,  to  whom  we  would  have  to  look  for 
additional  officers  in  case  of  the  necessity  of  sud- 
denly making  a  large  army,  are  seldom  found 
among  our  own  regulars  ?  Some  of  the  reasons 
for  this  deplorable  deficiency  of  valuable  material 
have  already  been  suggested.  There  is  nothing 
to  induce  a  man  to  enter  military  life,  and  the 
enlisted  man  is  too  frequently  used  as  a  common 
laborer. 

But  beside  this,  there  is  a  greater  grievance. 
It  is  that  ours  is  as  aristocratic  an  army  as  any 


NATIONAL    DEFENCE. 

in  the  world,  and  that  the  distance  of  the  officers 
from  the  enlisted  men  is  so  great  as  to  be  simply 
immeasurable.  Volunteers  used  to  grumble  that 
some  of  their  officers1  "put  on  airs."  It  is 
scarcely  fair  to  say  that  regular  officers  put  on 
airs,  but  it  certainly  is  true  that  the  enlisted  man, 
as  a  rule,  is  generally  treated  by  his  superiors  as 
a  being  of  an  entirely  different  order.  Few  men 
rise  from  the  ranks.  Some  men  now  high  up  on 
regimental  rosters  used  to  be  private  soldiers,  and 
a  few  instances  of  the  kind  occur  nowadays,  but 
the  vacancies  are*  too  few  to  attract  good  men  to 
the  ranks.  Let  any  one  live  at  a  military  post 
a  little  while  and  explain,  if  he  can,  how  any  one 
with  sufficient  self-respect  to  be  fit  for  military 
rank  of  any  kind  can  bring  himself  to  enlist  in 
the  United  States  army  at  all. 

All  this  could  be  changed,  without  increasing 
the  numerical  strength  of  the  army,  by  an  entire 
change  of  method  which  would  not  create  any 
friction,  disorganization  or  reorganization,  but 
which  nevertheless  would  encourage  a  better  class 
of  young  men  to  enlist — a  change  which,  indeed, 
would  secure  some  of  the  very  best  in  the  coun- 
try. An  army  so  small  as  ours  should  be  in  the 
highest  sense  a  military  school.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  prevent  it.  There  is  no  army  which  has 
more  leisure  at  its  disposal  or  officers  more  com- 
petent to  act  as  instructors.  No  army  in  the 
world  has  a  greater  percentage  of  highly  edu- 


312        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

cated  officers.  No  country  can  show  a  larger 
proportion  of  well-educated,  restless,  unem- 
ployed, aspiring  young  men.  There  is  no  en- 
gineering party  for  a  railroad,  a  mine,  a  river 
improvement  association,  a  drainage  company 
or  anything  else  requiring  applied  mathemati- 
cal and  mechanical  skill  but  can  secure  a  large 
staff  of  intelligent  young  men  at  an  expense 
not  exceeding  that  of  the  ordinary  soldier. 
These  men  generally  work  harder  and  fare  worse, 
regarding  personal  comfort,  than  the  meanest  of 
soldiers,  yet  they  are  not  only  entirely  satisfied 
with  their  chance,  but  elbow  each  other  fiercely  in 
their  desire  to  get  it. 

Suppose  that  instead  of  selecting  men  merely 
for  their  physical  quality  and  their  supposed 
capacity  for  obedience,  the  standard  of  admission 
to  the  ranks  of  the  army  should  be  as  high  as 
that  of  admission  to  West  Point.  Suppose  the 
Government  were  to  assure  the  people  that  the 
recruits  would  be  treated  as  well  as  the  cadets  at 
the  military  or  naval  academy ;  in  an  instant  the 
army  might  have  its  choice  from  a  hundred  thou- 
sand intelligent,  well-born,  well-bred,  honorable, 
aspiring  young  men.  As  already  said,  there  is 
no  trouble  in  getting  any  quantity  of  men  of  this 
class  to  go  out  under  the  control  of  engineers  for 
hard  and  unpleasant  duty.  The  inducement,  be- 
side the  financial  compensation,  is  that  they  will 
be  enabled  to  fit  themselves,  at  least  to  some  ex- 


NATIONAL  DEFENCE.  313 

tent,  for  the  class  of  work  which  their  superiors 
are  already  engaged  in.  They  are  close  observ- 
ers, earnest  students,  intelligent  assistants,  and 
the  beginning  of  many  an  engineer,  now  prom- 
inent, has  been  in  just  such  parties. 

The  United  States  army  might  as  well  be  one 
great  school  of  engineering  and  military  tactics. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  mere  company  drill, 
which  is  almost  all  the  drill  the  American  soldier 
is  ever  subjected  to,  thanks  to  the  distribution  of 
the  force  in  such  a  way  that  scarcely  any  regi- 
ment has  been  together  within  a  single  period  of 
enlistment  of  any  soldier  in  the  army,  requires 
very  little  time.     It  is  no  harder  to  become  pro- 
ficient in  than  that  of  the  militia  of  the  various 
States  and  cities.     Indeed,  with  company  drills 
once  a  week,  almost  any  militia  regiment  or  com- 
pany can  present  a  finer  appearance  upon  parade 
than  any  but  two  or  three  "show"  companies  of 
regulars.     The  remainder  of  military  life  consists 
in  guard  duty,  the  details  of  camp  duty  and  of 
applied  engineering,  which  each  man  can  learn 
as  rapidly  by  experience  as  an  equal  number  of 
assistants  in  a  construction  party  anywhere  else. 
It  is  known  well  enough  at  the  West  that  the 
construction  parties  of  railways  contain,  beside  a 
mass  of  common  laborers,  a  great  many  intelli- 
gent young  fellows  who  have  put  on  flannel  shirts 
and  cow-hide  boots,  have  taken  pick  and  shovel 
and  wheelbarrow,  not  so  much  for  the  wages  that 


314  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

are  paid  them  as  for  what  they  are  learning  o£ 
the  art  of  railroad  building.  If  such  men  can 
put  up  with  the  treatment  ordinarily  accorded 
the  section  hands  of  a  railway  constructing  party, 
they  certainly  would  be  satisfied  with  the  man- 
ners of  officers  of  the  United  States  army. 

But — and  here  is  an  important  distinction — no 
railway  boss,  however  much  of  a  tyrant  he  may 
be,  would  dare  to  order  one  of  his  hands  to  cook 
his  supper  or  wait  at  his  table  or  groom  his  horse 
or  do  any  other  service  of  the  quality  commonly 
known  as  menial,  but  the  American  soldier  in  the 
regular  army  is  sometimes  obliged  to  regard  such 
demands  as  a  matter  of  course. 

A  plan  was  suggested  a  short  time  ago,  by  a 
military  officer  of  experience,  by  which  the  army 
might  be  reorganized  on  this  basis  without  any 
additional  expense  and  without  any  possibility 
of  friction.  Several  years  ago  Major  Sumner,  of 
the  regular  army,  himself  a  son  of  an  old  regu- 
lar of  national  fame,  suggested  a  similar  plan  re- 
garding a  single  branch  of  the  service — the  cav- 
alry. His  plan  was  to  select  from  among  the 
floating  population  of  wild  boys  of  the  different 
cities  a  number  of  the  more  intelligent,  and  or- 
ganize from  them  a  single  regiment  of  cavalry, 
to  be  carefully  trained  and  specially  educated, 
the  more  promising  and  deserving  recruits  to  be 
placed  in  the  line  of  promotion,  and  all  to  be  en- 
couraged to  look  to  possible  rank,  responsibility. 


NATIONAL    DEFENCE.  315 

and  position  as  part  of  the  compensation  for  the 
necessary  restraint  to  which  they  might  be  sub- 
jected. This  restraint  could  by  no  possibility 
be  more  severe  and  continuous  than  that  of  West 
Point. 

All  that  has  been  said  about  the  army  applies 
with  equal  force  to  the  navy.  When  the  appren- 
tice system  was  formulated  there  was  hope  ex- 
pressed by  hundreds  of  officers  who  had  served 
in  one  branch  or  other  of  the  service  during 
the  late  civil  war,  that  it  might  afford  a  step- 
ping-stone to  ambitious  young  men  who  wished 
to  adopt  a  seafaring  career,  but  were  unable 
to  obtain  admission  to  the  naval  academy,  or  in 
any  other  way  to  gain  a  sufficient  education 
in  seamanship  and  gunnery,  which  are  the  two 
principal  requirements  of  the  American  naval 
officer.  But  if  any  number  of  naval  apprentices 
have  yet  reached  officers'  uniforms  or  see  be- 
fore them  any  hope  of  such  advancement,  the 
country  has  not  heard  of  it;  neither  has  the 
naval  department.  The  boys  are  treated  kindly, 
well  fed,  well  clothed,  educated  to  a  certain  extent 
and  trained  by  officers  carefully  selected  for  their 
intelligence,  forbearance,  patience,  and  tact.  But 
has  any  one  seen  any  recommendation  either  to 
the  naval  department  or  to  members  of  Congress 
that  the  apprentice  ships  should  be  schools  for 
naval  officers  ? 

The  consequence  is  that  in  case  of  our  becom- 


316        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

ing  suddenly  involved  in  war  with  any  power  we 
would  be  in  as  bad  a  position  as  we  were  when 
the  civil  war  broke  out.  At  that  time  there  was 
a  sudden  demand  for  twenty  times  as  many 
trained  military  officers  as  the  regular  army  and 
the  graduating  class  at  West  Point  could  supply, 
and  the  demand  became  greater  every  month 
during  the  time  in  which  our  first  million  of  men 
were  enlisted.  The  scarcity  of  available  mate- 
rial was  so  deplorable  that  many  lieutenants  of 
regulars  were  called  to  the  command  of  volun- 
teer regiments.  Did  any  one  think  to  go  to  the 
ranks  of  the  regular  army  for  officers  ?  At  that 
time  there  were  in  the  army  thousands  of  ser- 
geants, any  one  of  whom,  had  he  been  in  the 
militia  in  a  corresponding  position,  would  have 
been  considered  amply  fit  to  organize,  drill,  and 
otherwise  care  for  a  company  of  a  hundred  men. 
But  there  were  no  such  demands,  and  had  they 
been  made  the  proper  men  would  not  have  been 
forthcoming  to  any  extent.  The  lack  was  not  of 
military  skill,  but  of  the  many  other  qualities 
which  go  to  the  make-up  of  a  soldier.  And  first 
among  these  is  a  high  degree  of  self-respect — a 
quality  which  has  never  been  nourished  among 
enlisted  men  of  the  regular  army  of  the  United 
States. 

The  real  trouble  is  lack  of  proper  public  spirit. 
During  a  recent  chat  with  Admiral  Porter,  that 


NATIONAL    DEFENCE.  317 

fine  old  sea-dog  and  fighter  bemoaned  the  lack 
of  any  proper  public  sense  of  caution. 

"  Why  don't  you  write  up  the  subject  your- 
self ?"  I  asked.  " 

"  Write  !  "  exclaimed  the  veteran,  in  his  ener- 
getic way  ;  "  I've  almost  written  my  finger-nails 
off,  and  do  not  believe  it  has  done  a  particle  of 
good.  Nothing  would  please  me  more  than  to 
be  able  to  infuse  a  patriotic  spirit  into  the  Ameri- 
can people — make  them  feel  that  they  have  a 
flag  and  need  a  navy  to  protect  it.  I  wish  we 
had  some  of  the  energy  and  patriotism  exhibited 
by  our  forefathers,  for,  according  to  present  in- 
dications, we  will  one  day  be  humiliated  by  some 
fifth-rate  naval  power  which  will  come  to  our 
shores  and  teach  us  a  lesson.  No  reason  exists 
why  we  should  be  exempt  from  war,  for  we  are 
easily  excited,  and,  like  the  school-boy,  dare  any 
one  to  knock  the  chip  from  our  shoulder,  though 
not  able  to  fight." 

So  say  we  all  of  us — all  who  give  the  subject 
intelligent  thought. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

LABOR. 

LABORING  MEN — this  is  their  own  title  for 
themselves — do  not  work  any  harder  than  the 
remainder  of  their  fellow-beings.  But  those  who 
come  under  this  title  as  it  is  generally  under- 
stood have  some  grievances  that  must  be  removed 
before  several  million  men  can  transverse  the 
long  distance  between  dissatisfaction  and  com- 
fort. 

The  Labor  party,  so-called,  has  made  an  ass  of 
itself  a  great  many  times,  but  its  blunders  cannot 
change  the  fact  that  many  of  its  complaints  have 
a  great  deal  of  ground  to  stand  on.  The  farmer 
who  shoots  the  man  that  stole  his  horses  may  be 
a  murderer,  but  that  does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
his  horses,  upon  whose  work  depend  his  crops, 
his  family's  fate,  and  the  ownership  of  his  farm, 
have  been  stolen.  So,  when  a  railroad  strike 
prevents  thousands  of  travellers  not  owning  any 
railway  stock,  not  having  any  part  or  influence 
in  railway  management,  from  reaching  their  des- 
tination, the  strikers  may  be  absolute  scoundrels 
in  their  disregard  of  the  rights  of  their  fellow- 
sis 


LABOR.  319 

men;  nevertheless  it  is  entirely  true  that  their 
own  wages  may  have  been  ground  down  to  starv- 
ation basis,  and  consequently  the  men  have  a 
right  to  complain. 

Labor  is  sure  to  be  imposed  upon  just  as  much 
as  the  laboring  class  will  endure  the  imposition. 
The  poorer  the  man  the  more  necessary  is  it  that 
he  shall  work  in  order  to  live.  This  being  so,  he 
is  sure  sooner  or  later  to  encounter  somebody 
who  will  take  advantage  of  him.  No  man  need 
be  a  scoundrel  in  order  to  drive  a  sharp  bargain 
if  he  gets  the  chance.  To  drive  a  sharp  bargain 
is  something  that  all  of  us  rather  pride  ourselves 
upon.  Probably  the  laboring  man  would  do  it 
himself  if  he  got  the  opportunity.  Nevertheless, 
the  purpose  and  aim  of  the  laboring  man  should 
be  to  be  so  "fixed"  that  no  one  can  catch  him  at 
a  disadvantage. 

Labor- — that  is,  organized  labor,  must  be  in 
ceaseless  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  competition 
that  prevails  among  employers.  In  every  manu- 
facturing industry  that  admits  of  competition,  all 
the  way  from  making  door-mats  to  building 
houses  and  railroads,  men  try  by  underbidding 
one  another  to  get  business.  The  energy  of  a 
new  country  is  always  in  excess  of  its  capital  and 
also  of  its  demand.  This  is  very  encouraging  so 
far  as  the  outlook  for  energy  goes,  but  it  does 
work  a  great  many  wrongs  and  unpleasantnesses. 
In  business  it  does  not  take  long  to  reach  bed- 


320  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

• 

rock  as  to  cost  of  raw  material.  After  that,  the 
strain  of  competition  must  come  entirely  upon 
labor,  and,  if  labor  does  not  resist,  it  must 
starve. 

Consequently  the  workingman  must  fight,  and 
fight  continually,  to  keep  from  being  reduced  to 
slavery  in  one  form  or  other.  The  word  slavery 
has  a  dreadful  sound,  but  there  are  ways  of 
muffling  it  so  that  the  slave  himself  does  not 
always  see  himself  in  a  true  light. 

It  is  only  a  short  time  ago  that  New  England 
was  thrown  into  a  fervor  of  patriotic  indignation 
by  the  spectacle  presented  in  one  town  of  a  native 
bringing  a  laborer  in  chains  to  the  market-place 
to  be  sold.  The  owner  regarded  himself  as  en- 
tirely in  the  right,  and  explained  his  position 
very  distinctly.  He  had  obtained  his  vassal  on 
a  contract  that  a  certain  amount  of  labor  would 
be  given  for  a  specified  sum  of  money.  The  sum 
was  small ;  nevertheless  it  was  paid  and  accepted, 
and  the  man  afterward  imagined  that  he  could 
escape  from  the  terms  of  his  contract.  Conse- 
quently the  employer,  or  purchaser,  as  he  seemed 
to  consider  himself,  put  chains  upon  the  fellow, 
and  as  literally  brought  him  for  sale  as  any  slave 
was  ever  offered  in  any  slave-mart  in  the  world. 
The  beholders  rose  in  their  wrath,  dragged  both 
men  before  the  court,  the  slave  was  freed  and  the 
owner  was  fined. 

But  the  point  is  here :  this  was  simply  a  case 


LABOR.  321 

iii  which  the  slave-dealer,  taking  advantage  of  an 
ignorant,  unthinking  man,  was  found  out.  How 
many  thousands  of  similar  cases  exist  in  the 
United  States  at  the  present  time  of  which  the 
public  know  nothing  ?  All  newspaper  men  at 
the  principal  sea-ports  know  that  people  come  to 
this  country  by  the  thousand  on  contracts  to  do 
a  certain  amount  of  labor  for  specified  prices. 
The  prices  may  be  below  the  cost  of  living,  never- 
theless the  contracts  hold  good  in  all  courts  of 
law,  and  the  men  are  obliged  to  do  their  duty. 
We  are  sorry  for  them,  but,  according  to  the 
practice  of  all  countries,  man  -seems  to  be  made 
for  the  law  and  not  the  law  for  man. 

Do  I  really  mean  to  say  that  slavery  is  pos- 
sible in  the  United  States  ?  Why,  such  a  ques- 
tion is  behind  the  times,  for  slavery  practically 
exists.  What  else  but  slavery  can  you  call  the 
condition  of  some  of  the  coal-miners,  tanners  and 
factory  hands  of  the  United  States  ?  Men  with 
their  wives  and  families  go  to  a  small  town  which 
practically  belongs  to  their  employer.  They  live 
in  houses  owned  by  their  employer,  buy  their 
household  supplies  at  stores  owned  by  their  em- 
ployer, take  their  pay  in  checks,  tickets  or  orders 
signed  by  their  employer,  and  get  the  remainder 
of  their  pay  when  their  employer  is  ready. 
Suppose  they  wish  to  improve  their  condition 
and  go  away ;  how  can  they  move  at  all  unless 
they  have  saved  some  money,  the  saving  of 


L'l 


322  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

which,  by  a  peculiarity  well  understood  in  all 
such  localities,  is  simply  impossible  ? 

The  method  is  practically  that  of  South 
America.  In  some  of  our  sister  republics  the 
laboring  men  who  are  on  a  plantation  are  called 
a  consistado.  Men  are  obtained,  in  the  first  place, 
by  a  small  advance  of  money,  and  are  told  that 
they  can  obtain  additional  sums  at  such  times 
as  they  may  need  them,  provided  the  money  is 
already  due  them  for  work  done.  But  these 
laborers  are  improvident.  When  they  wish  to 
spend  money,  the  employer  good-naturedly — so 
it  is  supposed — allows  them  to  draw  slightly  in 
advance,  and  by  the  laws  of  the  country  the 
laborer  can  never  leave  until  his  indebtedness  to 
the  employer  is  paid. 

In  some  of  the  South  American  republics 
there  are  consistados,  from  which  no  man  can 
escape  to  work  elsewhere  without  being  claimed 
and  returned  by  forms  very  similar  to  those 
which  prevailed  in  the  United  States  under  the 
old  fugitive  slave  law  in  slavery  times.  If  a 
workman  on  the  plantation  of  Don  Tomas  re- 
covers from  a  feast-day  celebration  in  a  state  of 
mind  which  leads  him  to  run  away  and  go  to  the 
plantation  of  Don  Jorge,  he  is  missed  at  roll-call, 
his  absence  is  reported  to  his  employer,  and 
straightway  a  lot  of  notes  are  sent  out  to  the 
owners  of  surrounding  estates  notifying  them  of 
the  runaway  and  requesting  them  to  return  him 


LABOR.  323 

to  his  employer,  who  will  pay  the  expenses  in- 
curred by  the  return.  The  request  is  always 
honored,  because  what  neighbor  knows  when 
some  member  of  his  own  consistado  may  disap- 
pear in  the  same  manner,  and  be,  of  course, 
slightly  in  debt  to  his  employer  ? 

The  same  state  of  affairs  prevails  practically 
in  a  number  of  our  mining  and  manufacturing 
regions.  Men  who  are  paid  only  once  a  month 
or  once  in  two  months  get  advances  from  their 
employers  in  the  shape  of  orders  for  family  sup- 
plies upon  stores  in  the  vicinity,  stores  probably 
owned  by  the  employer.  So  long  as  the  pur- 
chaser is  in  debt  he  may  be  stopped  if  he 
attempts  to  leave  the  country,  and  if  he  goes 
alone,  as  usually  he  must,  his  family  is  unable 
to  follow  him,  and,  still  more,  unable  to  retain  a 
home  and  get  food,  for  the  roof  which  shelters 
them  belongs  also  to  the  employer,  as  does  the 
only  store  which  gives  credit.  Only  a  few  years 
ago  I  met  in  the  State  of  New  York  a  tanner, 
who  was  said  to  be  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  his 
business,  who  told  me  that  he  had  been  seven 
years  in  the  town  and  house  in  which  I  found  him, 
trying  to  work  out  his  indebtedness  to  his  em- 
ployer, so  as  to  take  his  family  somewhere  else 
where  they  could  have  better  society  and  where 
his  children  could  have  better  facilities  for  edu- 
cation, but  in  spite  of  all  efforts  at  economy  he 
was  still  in  debt  to  his  employer.  As  the  said 


324  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

employer  fixed  the  rate  of  wages,  the  tanner 
could  not  possibly  see  how  his  condition  would 
ever  be  otherwise. 

This  apparently  anomalous  feature  of  our 
civilization  may  appear  to  the  reader  to  be  acci- 
dental and  exceptional,  but  it  is  not.  In  the 
larger  cities  the  same  conditions  prevail  under 
different  forms.  There  are  a  great  many  shops 
in  New  York  and  other  cities  where  men  and 
women,  principally  the  latter,  work  at  starvation 
wages,  and  are  so  assisted  by  the  pretended  kind- 
ness of  their  employers  that  they  always  are  in 
debt  and  cannot  possibly  leave  without  fear  of 
suit  and  possibly  arrest.  The  so-called  slave 
marts  of  certain  districts  of  the  city  of  New 
York  on  Sundays  are  not  overdrawn  pictures, 
as  the  reading  public  may  imagine  them.  There 
are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  so  absolutely 
bound  to  their  present  employers  that  their  only 
method  of  escape  seems  to  be  death. 

Public  sentiment  does  not  countenance  slavery, 
though,  and  public  sentiment  is  all-powerful? 
The  will  of  the  people  is  the  law  of  the  land  ? 
Yes,  yes;  that  sounds  very  well.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  truth  in  it,  too,  but  the  truth  is  all 
on  one  side.  Public  sentiment  does  not  concern 
itself  with  anything  which  is  not  brought  closely 
to  its  attention.  Public  sentiment  in  the  United 
States  did  not  countenance  African  slavery  long 
after  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  nevertheless 


LABOR.  325 

the  institution  grew  and  flourished  until  it  almost 
destroyed  the  nation.  Public  sentiment  did  not 
approve  of  any  of  the  abuses  of  the  colored  race 
which  individual  overseers  and  owners  might  be 
mean  enough  to  indulge  in.  Nevertheless,  as  in 
everything  else,  the  public  acted  upon  the  old- 
fashioned  principle  of  not  interfering  in  other 
people's  business.  The  general  public  does  not 
handle  the  slaves,  still  less  does  the  general  pub- 
lic manage  the  employers.  It  hears  once  in  a 
while  of  abuses  and  cruelties,  and  thinks  these 
are  outrageous,  but  they  are  not  its  affair.  Each 
man  must  look  out  for  himself,  Heaven  helps 
those  who  help  themselves,  etcetera,  etcetera. 
There  are  a  good  many  ways  of  getting  rid  of 
moral  responsibility  in  this  world,  and  nearly 
everybody  is  mean  enough  to  take  advantage  of 
them  when  the  moral  responsibility  does  not  af- 
fect any  one  of  his  own  family,  much  less  his 
own  pocket-book. 

But  can  the  condition  of  labor  be  improved  ? 
Yes,  if  labor  is  entirely  in  earnest  about  it. 
Labor's  principal  need  is  brains.  I  don't  mean 
they  must  increase  their  own  brains ;  but  in 
their  conflicts  with  employers  the  laboring  men 
should  be  led,  or  their  interests  should  be  man- 
aged, by  men  who  know  both  sides  of  the  ques- 
tion. Are  there  such  men  in  the  ranks  of  the 
laborers  ?  It  appears  not ;  if  there  were,  such 
men  would  not  be  laborers  at  all.  How  many 


326  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

meii  there  are  whose  hearts  have  been  strongly 
stirred  up  by  the  wrongs  endured  by  labor  in 
the  United  States,  who  have  longed  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  assist  the  working  classes  with  their 
sympathy  and  counsel,  but  who  have  been  re- 
pelled again  and  again  by  the  utterly  unbusiness- 
like and  senseless  methods  of  the  very  men 
whom  they  desired  to  help !  During  the  strikes 
in  the  cotton  mills  of  New  England,  a  few  years 
ago,  it  was  remarked  by  a  millionaire,  a  man  of 
leisure,  who  desired  to  assist  the  operatives  with 
his  time,  his  money  and  his  legal  ability,  that 
could  he  have  such  a  faculty  of  working  as  the 
laboring  class  had  of  blundering  he  would  be 
the  greatest  man  who  ever  lived. 

There  is  no  objection,  on  the  part  of  Ameri- 
cans, to  workingmen  enjoying  all  proper  rights 
and  protection  under  the  law;  the  only  trouble 
is  in  unwise  methods  of  procedure.  President 
Cleveland  puts  the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell  as 
follows : 

"  Under  our  form  of  government  the  value  of 
labor  as  an  element  of  national  prosperity  should 
be  distinctly  recognized,  and  the  welfare  of  the 
laboring  man  should  be  regarded  as  especially 
entitled  to  legislative  care.  In  a  country  which 
offers  to  all  its  citizens  the  highest  attainment  of 
social  and  political  distinction,  its  workingmen 
cannot  justly  or  safely  be  considered  as  irrev- 
ocably consigned  to  the  limits  of  a  class  and 


LABOR.  V 

entitled  to  no  attention  and  allowed  no  protest 
against  neglect.  The  laboring  man,  bearing  in 
his  hand  an  indispensable  contribution  to  our 
growth  and  progress,  may  well  insist,  with  manly 
courage  and  as  a  right,  upon  the  same  recogni- 
tion from  those  who  make  our  laws  as  is  ac- 
corded to  any  other  citizen  having  a  valuable  in- 
terest in  charge;  and  his  reasonable  demands 
should  be  met  in  such  a  spirit  of  appreciation  and 
fairness  as  to  induce  a  contented  and  patriotic 
co-operation  in  the  achievement  of  a  grand 
national  destiny.  While  the  real  interests  of 
labor  are  not  promoted  by  a  resort  to  threats  and 
violent  manifestations,  and  while  those  who, 
under  the  pretexts  of  an  advocacy  of  the  claims 
of  labor,  wantonly  attack  the  rights  of  capital, 
and  for  selfish  purposes  or  the  love  of  disorder 
sow  seeds  of  violence  and  discontent,  should 
neither  be  encouraged  nor  conciliated,  all  legis- 
lation on  the  subject  should  be  calmly  and  delib- 
erately undertaken,  with  no  purpose  of  satisfying 
unreasonable  demands  or  gaining  partisan  ad- 
vantage." 

The  press  of  the  United  States,  as  a  rule,  is 
on  the  side  of  abused  men  of  any  class,  not  ex- 
cepting laboring  men  who  strike  against  oppres- 
sion of  any  kind  or  against  reduced  compensa- 
tion, but  often  and  often  within  a  very  few  years, 
within  the  memory  of  men  who  are  still  young, 
the  press  has  been  obliged  by  common-sense 


328  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

alone  to  condemn  strikes  of  men  whose  condition 
they  regarded  as  deplorable,  but  whose  imme- 
diate purpose  was  absolutely  indefensible.  A 
business  man  in  a  position  which  he  does  not  en- 
tirely understand  seeks  the  counsel  of  a  lawyer 
or  of  some  one  who  fully  comprehends  the  case 
in  all  its  bearings.  The  laboring  man  seems  to 
think  such  a  course  unnecessary,  and  he  suffers 
the  consequences. 

Will  any  unions,  guilds,  Knights  of  Labor, 
help  the  workingmen  to  maintain  such  rights  as 
they  have  and  gain  such  as  they  need  ?  Yes,  if 
there  are  brains  behind  them.  "  In  union  is 
strength,"  but  strength  may  be  just  as  effective 
in  a  bad  sense  as  a  good  one,  and  the  more  of  it 
there  is  the  worse  will  be  the  showing  made  if 
the  cause  is  not  just.  If  workingmen  were  di- 
vine, all  their  past  efforts  would  have  done  a  great 
deal  of  good,  but  they  are  only  human,  and  there 
is  no  getting  away  from  the  fact  that  when  any  lot 
of  men  first  are  brought  together  through  sense 
of  wrong,  their  first  thought  is  revenge,  which 
never  meets  the  public's  views.  "  Vengeance  is 
mine,  saith  the  Lord,"  is  an  expression  from 
authority  so  high  that  we  are  obliged  to  treat  it 
with  respect,  and  it  is  certain  that  during  the 
present  generation  a  desire  for  vengeance  by  any 
one  or  for  any  reason  whatever  has  never  called 
forth  the  sympathy  of  the  public. 

Human  nature  is  a  very  weak  article.     No  one 


LABOR. 

knows  this  better  than  the  wise  man  who  has  a 
great  deal  of  it  himself;  so  in  all  quarrels  he  as- 
sumes that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  right  on  both 
sides  and  that  reconciliation  or  adjustment  must 
be  brought  about  by  conciliation  and  compromise. 
The  laboring  man  on  strike  is  not  given  to  either 
conciliation  or  compromise.  Whatever  his  wrongs 
may  be,  he  has  first  endured  them  for  a  long 
time  and  when  he  has  begun  to  complain  of  them 
his  complaints  have  never  been  made  directly, 
but  simply  are  voiced  among  his  fellows,  then  in- 
creased in  volume.  The  argument  on  the  other 
side  has  never  been  brought  to  his  attention,  and 
consequently  he  regards  himself  as  the  only  per- 
son wronged  and  almost  as  the  only  person  who 
has  any  interest  in  the  matter  in  any  way.  It 
never  occurs  to  him  that  his  employer,  like  nine- 
teen in  twenty  of  all  the  employers  of  the 
United  States,  is  doing  his  business  on  the  basis 
of  general  confidence  and  borrowed  capital,  and 
that  what  might  seem  fair  to  the  employer  as  an 
individual  may  be  utterly  impossible  when  de- 
manded of  the  employer  as  a  business  man. 

In  all  the  manufacturing  centres  outside  of 
large  cities  the  majority  of  employers  do  busi- 
ness with  money  borrowed  from  savings  banks 
which  have  obtained  this  money  by  deposits 
from  the  laboring  men  themselves.  An  injury 
done  to  one  is  an  injury  to  all.  If  labor  goes 
back  upon  the  employer,  the  banks  also  must  go 


330  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

back  upon  him,  and  after  this  nothing  but  a  very 
wise  head  can  prevent  injury  to  both.  When 
upon  such  a  complication  there  comes  the  spirit 
of  revenge  nothing  but  a  special  interposition  of 
Providence  can  prevent  injury  for  everybody. 

One  fact  that  should  be  constantly  borne  in 
mind  is  that  trades  unions,  no  matter  what  their 
titular  name  may  be,  can  never  be  sure  of  sup- 
port from  men  in  the  same  trade  who  have  most 
sense  and  influence.  Protests,  whether  with 
words  or  blows,  are  always  made  by- the  discon- 
tented, but  the  better  class  of  workingmen  are 
not  of  that  variety.  They  either  have  better 
sense  than  their  associates  or  make  better  use  of 
the  sense  they  have,  so  they  are  in  positions  with 
which  they  are  fairly  contented.  Men  who  have 
been  "  inside  "  of  a  great  many  labor  movements 
are  no  less  vigorous  in  their  denunciation  of  the 
stupidity  of  labor  than  the  most  earnest  or  most 
hypocritical  employer  that  can  be  named.  They 
say  or  they  have  said  to  newspaper  men  whose 
business  it  has  been  to  interrogate  them  closely 
that  "if"  so-and-so  had  happened  the  results 
would  have  been  different,  but  A  or  B  or  C,  each 
of  whom  had  a  number  of  personal  retainers, 
thought  differently,  and  consequently  the  trouble 
was  prolonged.  Had  certain  other  men  in  the 
business  belonged  to  the  unions  or  guilds,  or 
whatever  associations  made  the  formal  protest 
against  wages  or  hours,  or  whatever  the  griev- 


LABOR.  331 

ances  might  have  been,  there  would  have  been  a 
chance  for  compromise,  or  arbitration,  or  some 
other  method  which  would  have  brought  the  con- 
flicting interests  into  harmony.  But  these  men 
"  stayed  out,"  as  the  saying  is.  They  were  men 
who  saw  opportunities  for  something  better  before 
them ;  consequently  they  did  not  intend  to  com- 
promise their  own  position  and  future  prospects 
by  taking  part  in  a  fight. 

Neither  can  the  unions  depend  upon  support 
from  mechanics  and  laborers  outside  of  the  large 
cities  and  of  villages  and  manufacturing  centres 
which  are  tributary  to  large  cities.  The  carpen- 
ter, mason  and  blacksmith  in  a  country  town 
feels  insulted  when  asked  to  organize  or  join  a 
trade  union.  He  does  not  feel  the  need  of  any 
protection.  He,  with  good  right,  considers  him- 
self as  smart  as  any  merchant  or  manufacturer 
or  capitalist  in  his  vicinity,  and  he  not  only  does 
not  see  the  need  of  any  protection  against  such 
people,  but  he  thinks  himself  smart  enough  to 
overcome  them  all  in  matters  pertaining  to  his 
own  business.  Experience  proves  that  he  is 
right.  Such  a  man  slowly  but  surely  becomes  a 
proprietor,  and  thus  an  employer  himself.  The 
idea  that  he  is  always  to  be  a  laborer  is  extremely 
distasteful  to  him,  and  even  if  he  were  convinced 
that  such  were  to  be  the  fact  he  would  not  admit 
it.  He  would  feel  that  he  would  be  voluntarily 
taking  a  lower  level  by  making  any  such  adinis« 


332  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

sion.  The  natural  consequences  may  be  seen  by 
any  man  who  has  done  business  in  a  number  of 
small  towns  or  villages.  The  journeyman  work- 
man in  any  trade  whom  he  knew  ten  or  fifteen 
years  ago,  in  his  beginning,  is  probably  now  an 
employer  and  a  proprietor  himself.  Quite  pos- 
sibly he  has  "  struck  a  big  thing,"  as  the  saying 
goes,  and  has  money  of  his  own ;  his  sons  are 
being  as  well  educated,  his  daughters  as  well 
dressed,  as  those  of  any  of  his  neighbors,  and  his 
wife  associates  on  terms  of  equality  with  the 
families  of  the  judge  or  Congressman  or  whoso- 
ever else  the  local  magnate  may  be. 

So  far  as  labor  expects  to  be  helped  by  public 
sympathy,  which  is  always  on  the  side  of  the 
unfortunate  and  oppressed,  it  cuts  its  own  throat 
by  denying  the  right  of  any  laborer  to  work  at 
cheaper  rates  than  his  fellows.  The  abuses  and 
indignities  to  which  so-called  scabs  have  been 
subjected  have  alienated  public  "  sympathy " 
from  labor  movements  to  a  most  deplorable  de- 
gree. No  American,  not  even  the  millionaire,  is 
free  from  the  influence  of  competition  in  busi- 
ness, and  the  richest  are  sometimes  those  who 
suffer  the  most.  Competition  has  been  defined 
as  the  soul  of  business,  and  no  one  yet  has  been 
skilful  enough  to  deny  or  modify  the  assertion. 
If  employers  may  compete,  if  clerks,  teachers, 
salesmen,  lawyers,  physicians,  even  clergymen, 
may  compete  with  one  another  for  wages  or  com- 


LABOR.  338 

pensation  for  their  services,  why  may  not  work- 
men ?  Can  any  one  imagine  a  body  of  clerks,  or 
dry-goods  salesmen,  or  lawyers,  forming  a  clique 
and  standing  at  dark  corners  with  clubs  and 
pistols  to  bully  other  men  of  their  own  profession 
into  demanding  certain  wages  on  penalty  of  re- 
fusing to  do  any  business  at  all  ? 

"  What  is  sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce  for  the 
gander."  If  one  class  of  labor  is  entitled  to  take 
as  much  wages  as  it  may  get  for  such  services  as 
it  can  render,  why  should  not  another  be  en- 
titled to  the  same  privilege  ?  It  is  very  true  that 
the  laboring  man  often  sees  in  free  competition 
by  a  large  number  of  men  a  possibility  that  he 
shall  be  deprived  of  his  daily  occupation.  But 
whose  fault  is  it  ?  That  of  the  competitor  who 
will  work  for  lower  wages  or  of  the  man  who  has 
done  so  little  outside  of  his  daily  stint  of  labor 
as  to  be  obliged  to  stand  in  the  position  of  a 
highwayman  or  bully  toward  any  one  who  can 
do  the  same  work  for  less  money  than  he  ? 

Can  law  improve  the  condition  of  the  working- 
man  ?  Can  you  make  a  horse  drink  by  leading 
him  to  the  water?  The  law  has  done  a  great 
deal  for  the  laborers  in  many  States  by  giving 
workmen  a  first  lien  upon  the  results  of  their 
work,  but  it  cannot  and  will  not  compel  the  com- 
munity to  regard  the  inefficient  worker  as  the 
equal  of  the  good  one,  which  is  the  point  upon 
which  some  trade  unions  and  other  organizations 


334        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

seem  inclined  to  insist.  Neither  will  it  allow  the 
employee  to  manage  his  employer's  business. 
The  employer  may  occasionally  find  himself  "in 
a  hole,"  where  he  must  submit  to  any  terms  im- 
posed by  the  only  men  who  can  help  him  out, 
but  if  he  gets  in  any  such  fix  a  second  time  his 
bankers  and  customers  will  go  back  upon  him, 
after  which  he  will  have  no  use  for  labor  at  any 
price. 

Then  can  law  and  public  opinion  do  more  for 
laboring  men  than  they  have  done  ?  Not  much. 
Why  ?  Because  law  and  public  opinion  are  made 
by  people  who  themselves  work — people  who 
stand  just  as  much  of  this  world's  wear  and  tear 
as  any  common  dirt-shoveller,  to  say  nothing  of 
any  skilled  mechanic.  There  are  more  farmers 
than  mechanical  laborers,  and  they  work  longer 
hours,  but  how  often  do  they  demand  help  of  the 
law  or  the  public  ?  In  every  large  city  there  are 
tens  of  thousands  of  clerks  who  are  driven  to  their 
utmost  capacity  at  less  compensation  per  day 
than  the  common  laborer  receives.  It  has  been 
ascertained  that  a  bank-teller  who  recently  de- 
faulted was  getting  a  salary  of  only  six  dollars 
per  week,  though  he  had  long  hours  and  great 
responsibility. 

Does  not  underpaid  labor,  outside  the  mechan- 
ical arts,  frequently  improve  its  own  condition  ? 
Yes,  frequently.  Well,  how  ?  Why,  by  using 
its  brains.  If  it  were  to  insist  that  its  whole 


LABOR.  335 

duty  was  done  when  its  daily  work  was  over  the 
public  would  laugh  at  it.  The  clerk,  the  teacher, 
the  salesman  considers  it  his  duty  to  continually 
improve  himself  in  order  to  be  fit  for  such  oppor- 
tunities as  may  arise.  A  man  in  any  one  of 
these  positions  who  would  spend  his  non-working 
hours  in  indulgence,  carelessness,  or,  worse  still, 
at  the  nearest  beer-shop,  would  be  considered  by 
his  employers  as  unfit  for  confidence  and  by  his 
associates  as  a  man  who  never  would  rise.  If 
such  men  are  so  badly  paid,  so  severely  worked, 
yet  are  skilful  enough  to  rise  from  the  low  finan- 
cial level  upon  which  their  work  places  them, 
why  should  not  the  laboring  class  in  general  rise 
in  the  same  manner  ?  It  is  useless  to  say  they 
cannot,  because  thousands  upon  thousands  have 
done  it  for  years.  It  has  already  been  said  that 
the  mechanics  of  a  few  years  ago  are  the  em- 
ployers and  managers  of  to-day.  A  great  deal 
more  might  be  said  in  the  same  direction,  for 
there  are  great  mills,  factories  and  industries  of 
the  United  States  to-day  controlled  by  men  who 
were  merely  poor  laborers  at  day  wages  a  few 
years  ago.  The  question  is  not  one  of  a  class  or 
of  an  industry ;  it  is  entirely  one  of  individual 
manhood,  and  the  man  stands  or  falls  by  him- 
self. The  more  he  depends  upon  an  association 
or  his  fellow-men  the  less  strength  there  is  in 
himself  to  resist  injury  or  to  make  his  way  up- 
ward. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SELF-HELP  FOR  LABOR. 

IF  the  laboring  man  doesn't  want  to  be  in  a 
state  of  slavery,  he  must  refrain  from  putting 
himself  into  chains. 

He  is  a  good  deal  like  the  rest  of  us ;  he 
always  blames  somebody  else  for  his  condition. 
He  wont  be  able  to  get  out  of  trouble  until  he 
lays  most  of  the  blame  on  himself. 

If  a  man  feels  obliged  to  enter  into  business 
relations  with  a  lion  he  does  not  begin  by  put- 
ting his  head  into  the  animal's  mouth.  If  a 
workingman  begins  life  with  the  belief,  which 
seems  prevalent  now,  that  all  employers  will  en- 
slave a  man  if  they  can,  he  should  not  allow 
himself  to  be  in  such  condition  that  he  cannot 
take  care  of  himself.  Why,  even  a  dog  or  a  cat 
going  into  a  strange  room  spends  its  first 
moments  in  looking  around  to  see  how  it  can  get 
out  again  in  case  of  necessity. 

Employers  as_  a  class  have  so  many  sins  to 
answer  for  that  there  will  be  lively  times  for 
them  on  judgment  day,  I  suppose,  but  that  is  no 
reason  why  the  employee  should  be  a  fool.  If  a 

336 


SELF-HELP   FOR  LABOR.  837 

man  sticks  a  knife  into  you,  and  is  sent  to  State's 
prison  for  it,  his  sentence  punishes  him,  but  it 
does  not  pay  your  doctor's  bill,  or  make  up  to 
you  what  you  have  lost  in  time  and  money 
while  you  have  been  lying  in  bed  under  the 
surgeon's  care. 

The  workingman  is  too  often  satisfied  to  do 
whatever  is  before  him  without  fitting  himself  to 
do  anything  else  in  case  of  accident  or  change 
of  business,  or  lack  of  demand,  or  any  one  of  the 
various  other  accidents  that  may  occur  to  disturb 
the  even  routine  of  his  life.  No  man  in  any 
other  line  of  business  dare  be  so  careless.  There 
are  clerks  and  book-keepers  and  men  in  the 
highest  mechanical  arts  who  are  very  good  in 
their  places,  but  who  never  fit  themselves  for 
anything  better  or  anything  else.  These  men 
are  slaves — literally.  Their  employers  know  it, 
if  the  slaves  themselves  don't.  No  matter  how 
honest  they  may  be,  no  matter  how  capable  they 
are  in  their  own  specialties,  these  are  the  men 
who  always  are  passed  over  when  promotions 
are  to  be  made,  or  when  men  are  to  be  selected 
for  higher  positions. 

By  a  strange  coincidence  these  are  also  the 
men  who  grumble  most  at  their  rate  of  pay, 
their  hours,  the  amount  of  work  they  have  to  do, 
and  the  manner  in  which  their  employers  treat 
them.  Many  of  them  are  such  good  fellows 
personally,  so  full  of  human  virtues  that  are  not 


22 


338        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

specially  business  virtues,  that  they  excite  a 
great  deal  of  sympathy  among  their  acquaint- 
ances, but  in  the  case  of  any  acquaintance  who 
happens  also  to  be  an  employer  there  is  no 
sympathy  whatever. 

The  American  workingman,  above  all  others 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  needs  to  take  this 
warning  to  heart,  for  one  result  of  competition 
has  been  the  subdivision  of  most  varieties  of 
mechanical  labor  to  a  degree  which  requires 
twenty  or  thirty  men  sometimes  to  complete  a 
bit  of  work  which  once  was  done  by  a  single  in- 
dividual. Undoubtedly  work  can  be  done 
cheaper  in  this  way,  and  both  capital  and  labor 
have  some  obligations  to  fulfil  toward  the  con- 
sumer, but  the  less  a  man  is  a  "  full-handed 
workman,"  which  means  that  he  can  do  all 
branches  of  the  business  in  which  he  is  en- 
gaged, the  more  necessary  it  is  for  him  to  be 
prepared  to  do  something  else  in  case  of  emer- 
gency. 

To  illustrate :  there  was  a  time,  almost  within 
the  memory  of  the  present  generation,  when 
miniature  painting  was  the  most  profitable  divis- 
ion of  art  work  in  the  United  States.  A  fine 
miniature  would  bring  more  money  than  an  oil 
painting.  Suddenly  the  process  of  daguerreotyp- 
ingwas  discovered.  Then  came  the  ambrotypeand 
photograph,  and  other  cheap  methods  of  making 
accurate  likenesses,  and  as  a  consequence  minia- 


SELF-HELP  FOR   LABOR.  339 

ture  paintings  became  less  and  less  in  demand, 
and  the  few  members  of  the  profession  who  still 
survive  have  none  at  all  of  the  work  at  which 
they  once  were  famous.  Some  of  them  took  to 
drawing  on  wood,  others  went  into  oil  portraits, 
some  devoted  themselves  to  water-colors,  and 
others  went  into  mechanical  businesses  where  a 
good  and  accurate  eye  for  color  and  proportion 
commanded  good  pay.  But  if  the  miniature 
painters,  whose  misfortunes  were  greater  than 
those  of  any  class  of  common  laborers  now  com- 
plaining to  the  public,  had  insisted  that  the 
public  owed  them  a  living  and  they  were  going 
to  have  it,  and  that  Congress  should  make  laws 
enabling  them  to  get  a  living  out  of  their  busi- 
ness, they  would  have  been  laughed  to  scorn. 
The  miniature  painters  had  no  more  brains  than 
mechanics.  What  is  fair  for  one  is  fair  for 
another. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  the  young  labor- 
ing man  does  is  to  take  a  wife.  A  wife  is  a  de- 
sirable object  of  possession.  So  is  a  horse,  a 
yacht  or  a  handsome  house,  but  the  man  who 
would  load  himself  with  either  while  he  sees  no 
means  of  supporting  it  except  by  weekly  earn- 
ings which  might  be  stopped  at  short  notice  by 
any  one  of  a  dozen  accidents  to  life  or  business, 
would  be  regarded  as  a  fool.  Some  people  would 
call  him  a  scoundrel.  Yet  when  financially 
pushed  a  man  can  sell  a  horse  or  yacht,  and  get 


340  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OE  THEE." 

at  least  part  of  the  value  while  getting  rid  of 
responsibility.  He  cannot  sell  a  wife,  though, 
even  if  he  is  willing.  That  sort  of  business  has 
become  illegal.  Even  if  it  had  not,  the  proba- 
bilities are  that  a  wife,  taken  by  a  fellow  who  is 
so  reckless  as  to  marry  before  he  is  able  to 
properly  care  for  so  precious  and  complicated  a 
bit  of  property  as  a  woman,  would  not  be  in 
salable  condition. 

The  possession  of  a  wife  implies,  quite  im- 
plies, occasional  bits  of  income,  but  also  of  re- 
sponsibility, in  the  shape  of  children.  "  He  who 
has  wife  and  children  has  given  hostages  to 
fortune."  The  rich  man  knows  this  to  his  cost, 
though  he  may  get  enough  delight  out  of  the 
experience  to  pay  him  a  thousand  times  over. 
But  to  the  poor  man  dependent  upon  daily 
wages,  and  with  no  property  or  savings  to  fall 
back  upon,  a  family  is  often  fetters,  with  ball  and 
chain  to  boot.  Thank  God,  such  bonds  often 
feel  as  light  as  feathers  and  soft  as  silk,  but  these 
sensations  do  not  decrease  the  weight  or  drag- 
ging power  one  particle.  If  a  man  determines 
to  marry  while  he  has  nothing  to  marry  on,  let 
him  at  least  be  honest  with  himself,  tell  himself 
that  he  is  going  to  be  the  slave  of  whoever  em- 
ploys him,  and  blame  himself  instead  of  em- 
ployers, or  capital,  or  public  opinion  for  the  con- 
sequences. 

There  is  a  large  class  of  workingmen  who  do 


SELF-HELP   FOR   LABOR.  341 

not  seem  to  think  they  are  fit  for  anything  but 
what  they  are  doing.  Such  men  may  be  honest, 
cheerful,  obedient,  industrious,  painstaking  and 
obliging.  Well,  slaves  have  been  all  this  and 
more.  Such  men  are  bound  to  be  slaves.  Noth- 
ing that  trade  unions,  Knights  of  L/abor,  law, 
religion  or  public  sentiment  can  do,  can  save 
them  from  practical  slavery. 

The  men  who  organized  any  State,  county  or 
town  in  this  Union  had  no  bigger  or  healthier 
brains  than  the  workingmen  of  to-day;  but  if 
each  of  them  had  imagined  he  could  do  but  one 
kind  of  work,  the  map  of  our  country  would  not 
look  as  it  does  now.  Any  of  these  men  con- 
sidered himself  equal  to  taking  a  hand  at  build- 
ing houses,  clearing  land,  shoeing  horses,  dig- 
ging post-holes,  following  the  plough,  planting 
corn,  tending  stock,  loading  steamboats,  acting 
as  deck-hand  of  a  flatboat,  carrying  mails,  or 
doing  whatever  else  had  to  be  done.  They 
blundered  terribly  at  times,  but  who  did  not  and 
who  does  not  ?  Bach  new  kind  of  work  they 
laid  their  hands  to  sharpened  their  wits  and 
widened  their  view  of  what  might  be  done  in  the 
way  of  getting  ahead  in  the  world.  That  is  the 
reason  why  trade  unions  do  not  flourish  in  new 
countries.  Men  there  have  been  taught  by  ex- 
perience to  take  care  of  themselves.  The  com- 
mon laborer  in  a  new  country  thinks  himself 
the  equal  of  the  judge,  the  doctor,  the  lawyer 


342  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

and  the  railway  president.  And  so  he  is,  so  far 
as  a  fair  impulse  and  a  fair  show  can  make  one 
man  equal  to  another  in  the  race  for  life. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  representative  working- 
men  in  our  large  cities  cannot  once  in  a  while 
be  sent  on  a  tour  of  observation  by  their  respec- 
tive trade  societies.  It  is  the  custom  of  almost 
every  man  to  regard  every  one  in  his  own  busi- 
ness as  about  in  his  own  condition.  But  an  ob- 
serving man  going  outside  of  the  large  cities  and 
the  manufacturing  towns  will  quickly  be  un- 
deceived regarding  the  possibilities  and  future  of 
his  own  business,  or  of  himself,  or  of  any  of  his 
associates  who  have  any  spirit  in  them.  He 
may  find  men  of  his  own  specialty  doing  work 
longer  hours  per  day  and  for  less  money  than  he 
is  accustomed  to  get,  and  they  may  seem  to  be 
having  terribly  hard  times,  but  there  is  one 
significant  difference  between  the  two  classes : 
the  men  in  new  countries  never  grumble  at 
whatever  their  hard  times  may  be.  If  nature 
refuses  a  crop,  or  makes  a  river  overflow  and 
washes  away  a  town,  or  a  plague  of  locusts 
comes  upon  them,  they  can  grumble  quite  as 
badly  as  any  one  else.  But  so  far  as  they  have 
free  use  of  their  own  wits  and  their  own  hands, 
they  "  don't  ask  nothin'  of  nobody,"  to  use  their 
own  emphatic  expression. 

The  mechanic  who  works  all  day  in  the  newer 
countries  can  seldom  be  found  in  the  beer-shop 


SELF-HELP   FOR   LABOR.  343 

at  night.  He  drops  into  the  post-office,  or  the 
store,  or  the  office  of  the  justice  of  the  peace,  or 
wherever  he  sees  a  crowd  of  men,  or  knows  that 
men  will  congregate,  so  that  he  may  learn  what 
is  going  on.  He  will  change  his  business  six 
times  in  the  week,  and  then  be  guilty  of  doing 
it  twice  on  Sunday,  if  there  is  any  money  in  it. 
You  never  know  the  business  of  a  man  in  a  new 
country  for  more  than  a  week  at  a  time,  unless 
you  have  your  eye  on  him.  It  may  seem  awfully 
stupid  to  the  stranger,  but  among  people  where 
his  lot  is  cast  the  workingman  manages  to  keep 
his  end  up,  as  the  saying  is,  and  the  man  who 
attempts  to  depress  that  end  is  dealt  with  by  the 
individual  himself.  If  a  laboring  man  aggrieved 
in  any  of  the  newer  countries  were  to  go  to  his 
fellow-workmen  for  relief,  he  would  be  called 
either  a  fool  or  a  coward.  If  he  does  not  like 
what  he  is  doing  he  is  expected  to  try  something 
else,  just  as  every  one  else  in  the  country  does. 
The  banker  does  not  restrict  himself  to  one 
single  business,  or  one  subdivision  of  business. 
Neither  does  the'  merchant,  or  the  manufacturer, 
or  any  of  the  few  farmers  who  have  become 
"  forehanded."  He  does  whatever  he  sees  most 
money  in,  and  he  has  blind  faith  in  his  ability  to 
do  it.  It  may  not  be  the  finest  variety  of 
finished  labor,  but  that  is  not  found  anywhere 
except  in  the  competitive  trades. 

It  should  not  need  any  argument  to  prove  all 


344        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

this.  There  seldom  is  a  great  strike  at  any 
manufacturing  centre  during  which  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  operatives  do  not  disappear.  Some  of 
them  find  work  elsewhere  in  their  own  specialty. 
but  the  oldest  inhabitant,  or  the  village  gossip,  01 
some  one  else  who  has  time  to  pay  close  atten- 
tion to  other  people's  business,  can  tell  you  that 
some  of  these  men  have  struck  out  for  them- 
selves in  some  other  direction,  and  they  very 
seldom  are  able  to  tell  you  that  any  such  change 
of  business  has  brought  unfortunate  results.  It 
has  already  been  said  in  this  book  that  some  of 
the  great  industries  of  the  country  to-day  are 
managed  by  men  who  once  were  common 
laborers. 

However  ignorant  the  workingman  may  be  of 
the  fact,  or  however  willing  he  may  be  to  ignore 
it,  the  truth  is  that  the  workingman  half  a 
century  ago  was  a  great  deal  worse  off  than  his 
successors  to-day.  He  worked  longer  hours,  he 
got  smaller  pay — I  mean  smaller  pay  in  propor- 
tion to  the  purchasing  power  of  money,  and  his 
social  position  was  very  bad.  Even  the  Revolu- 
tionary war,  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  rights  of  man,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
didn't  break  down  at  once  the  laws  of  caste  that 
had  come  to  us  from  the  old  country.  It  was 
not  so  very  long  ago  that  even  the  students  of 
Harvard  University  were  classified  according  to 
their  ancestry,  the  list  being  led  by  gentlemen, 


SELF-HELP  FOR   LABOR.  345 

which  was  followed  by  the  profession  and  theii 
brought  up  by  the  general  assortment  of  what 
the  late  Mr.  Venus  called  "  humans  various." 

The  apprentice  was  not  only  household  servant 
as  well  as  work-boy  to  his  employer,  but  he  was 
kepf  in  order  by  a  strap  or  a  club,  and  the  law 
not  only  could  give  him  no  redress  for  personal 
abuse,  but  it  recognized  the  right  of  the  em- 
ployer to  treat  his  boys  in  that  manner.  Boys 
brought  up  in  that  way  had  not  much  independ- 
ence when  they  became  men,  and  the  independent 
spirit  of  the  present  generation  was  a  thing 
almost  unknown  in  the  more  thickly  settled 
communities  at  that  time.  The  workingman  in 
that  day  was  more  religious  than  his  successors 
in  the  present  generation,  but  when  he  went  to 
church  he  sat  in  the  poorest  seats  ;  generally  he 
sat  in  the  gallery.  When  he  was  out  of  work 
he  went  to  the  poor-house.  The  poor-house  was 
built  especially  for  people  of  his  kind.  Perhaps 
in  some  of  the  large  cities  workingmen  and 
their  families  go  to  the  poor-house  to-day,  but 
most  of  them  will  take  pains  to  go  to  another 
community  than  that  in  which  they  are  known 
before  they  allow  themselves  to  be  supported  in 
such  manner. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  cannot  afford 
at  any  price  to  support  a  class  which  proposes  to 
stay  in  one  spot,  making  no  endeavor  to  go 
further  or  go  higher.  No  grade  of  society  can 


346  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

afford  to  support  such  a  class.  The  class  itself 
cannot  afford  to  remain  in  any  such  position. 
Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  willing- 
ness of  men  of  the  present  generation  to  enslave 
their  fellow-men  when  they  get  special  oppor- 
tunity. The  methods  are  not  the  same  as  of  old, 
but  the  fact  is  the  same  and  the  practice  is 
steadily  fostered  by  the  inability  of  a  great 
number  of  men  and  women  to  impress  upon  the 
public  any  ability  to  be  anything  better  than 
slaves. 

The  workingman  may  take  such  consolation 
as  there  may  be  in  the  fact  that  this  rule  does 
not  apply  to  him  or  to  his  own  class  alone.  It 
exists  everywhere.  There  are  plenty  of  business 
houses  who  keep  their  men  under  their  power, 
body  and  soul,  by  a  custom,  apparently  founded 
on  good  nature,  of  lending  them  money  in 
excess  of  their  earnings.  It  is  a  modification  of 
the  South  American  consistado  plan,  to  which 
allusion  has  already  been  made,  and  it  works 
just  as  well  in  New  York  or  Chicago,  or  any 
other  manufacturing  centre,  as  it  does  in  South 
America.  A  man  who  will  not  spend  his  earn- 
ings in  advance  if  he  can  get  them  is  pretty  hard 
to  find.  If  this  were  not  so  there  would  be  very 
little  of  mnning  to  banks,  by  business  men,  for 
discounts  and  loans,  and  "shaves."  The  im- 
pulse to  discount  the  future  is  almost  as  old  as 
the  world  itself.  It  dates  all  the  way  back  to 


SELF-HELP   FOR   LABOR.  347 

the  Garden  of  Eden,  when  our  first  parents 
began  to  devour  some  fruit  which  they  were  not 
yet  entitled  to. 

It  may  be  that  slavery  sometimes  is  pleasant. 
Indeed,  it  often  is.  In  spite  of  all  the  bad 
stories  that  were  told  about  the  treatment  of  the 
southern  blacks  during  old  slavery  days,  there 
were  a  great  many  plantations  from  which  the 
slaves  did  not  run  away,  even  after  they  heard 
of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  knew, 
from  what  they  heard  in  the  dining-room  and 
parlor,  that  the  South  was  on  its  last  legs,  and 
that  the  good  old  times  could  not  possibly  come 
back  again.  There  were  many  plantations  found 
by  the  Union  army,  during  its  tramps  through 
certain  States,  which  the  masters  and  the  mis- 
tresses had  abandoned,  but  to  which  the  colored 
people  clung  closely,  from  old  association  alone, 
and  were  found  there  when  the  owners  came 
back  again.  Slavery  exists  still  in  many  por- 
tions of  the  world,  principally  eastern  countries, 
and  Europeans  of  high  character  and  close  ob- 
servation have  declared  that  the  condition  does 
not  inflict  cruel  or  unfair  burdens  upon  the  en- 
slaved. 

But  this  is  a  free  country.  All  our  institu- 
tions are  based  upon  the  theory  that  one  man  is 
just  as  good  as  another,  and  not  only  so,  but 
that  he  ought  to  be  expected  to  be  as  good  as  his 

neighbors,  and  that  as  soon  as  he  ceases  to  be  an 
11 


348  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

independent  being,  the  master  of  his  own  time 
and  of  his  own  family,  including  all  their  in- 
terests, he  is  not  equal  to  his  duties  and  respon- 
sibilities as  a  citizen.  We  hear  a  great  deal 
about  votes  purchased  for  money  and  whiskey 
and  offers  of  office  ;  but  does  any  one  realize  how 
entirely  the  political  status  of  certain  States  and 
counties  and  towns  depends  upon  the  opinions  of 
even  the  temporary  whims  of  certain  large  em- 
ployers ?  There  are  thousands  of  men  in  each 
of  at  least  three  New  England  States  who  would 
not  dare  vote  any  way  than  they  are  requested 
to  do  by  their  employers.  Fac-similes  of  cards 
and  written  notices  have  been  printed  to  show 
that  in  certain  mills  the  proprietors  announced 
that  their  operatives  were  expected  to  vote  for 
certain  candidates  which  were  named.  If  an 
American,  an  inhabitant  of  the  freest  country  of 
the  world,  cannot  vote  as  he  pleases,  what  does 
his  personal  liberty  amount  to  ?  Even  a  tramp 
has  a  right  to  his  own  vote,  or  to  sell  it  to  the 
highest  bidder,  if  he  has  been  long  enough  a 
resident  of  the  locality  in  which  he  attempts  to 
deposit  his  ballot.  There  are  slaves  in  banks 
and  mercantile  houses  as  well  as  in  manufactur- 
ing establishments,  so  the  laboring  man  need  not 
leel  hurt  at  the  intimation  that  he  is  in  danger 
of  being  subjected  to  an  involuntary  servitude 
which  not  only  will  control  his  time,  but  also  his 
mind,  to  such  an  extent  that  he  is  not  a  free 


SELF-HELP  FOR   LABOR.  349 

agent  in  anything  regarding  moral  opinion  or  his 
duties  as  a  citizen. 

The  principal  outlet  for  the  energies  of  the 
workingman  at  the  present  time  is  undoubtedly 
in  the  newer  parts  of  the .  country.  There  is 
where  he  is  almost  sure  to  be  found  if  he  is  a 
man  of  proper  spirit  and  has  not  handicapped 
himself  so  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  reach  there. 
This  outlet  will  be  practicable  for  at  least  a  gen- 
eration to  come.  We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the 
new  countries  being  filled  up^  and  there  being  no 
chance  for  a  man  any  longer,  but  some  thou- 
sands of  men  who  have  footed  it  half-way  across 
the  continent  can  tell  us  differently,  and  show 
substantial  proofs  that  they  are  right. 

The  man  who  resolves  not  to  take  any  heavy 
responsibilities  upon  his  time  or  pocket  until  he 
considers  himself  fairly  settled  in  life,  can 
always  make  his  way  to  the  new  country,  and 
there  in  no  part  of  this  land,  although  it  is  not 
a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  in  which  he 
cannot  find  something  to  do.  I  once  was  made 
curious,  by  the  conversation  of  a  number  of 
workingmen  in  a  large  pork-packing  establish- 
ment in  a  small  town  in  the  West,  to  know  where 
they  had  come  from,  and  what  their  previous 
occupation  had  been,  and  among  twenty-seven 
men  I  found  twenty-one  businesses  and  profes- 
sions represented,  not  one  of  which  was  pork- 
packing.  Nevertheless  each  of  these  men  was 


350  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

earning  two  dollars  and  a  half  a  day,  and  keep- 
ing an  eye  open  for  something  better,  which  I 
am  happy  to  say  I  saw  some  of  them  realize 
within  a  few  months.  At  that  very  time  at  least 
one-half  of  the  trades  which  these  men  had 
originally  learned,  and  in  which  they  were  all 
supposed  to  be  experts,  were  languishing  in  the 
Bast,  and  a  great  number  of  those  engaged  in 
them  were  in  that  desperate  condition  of  mind 
that  in  other  countries  has  often  precipitated 
riots  and  brought  about  bloodshed  and  prolonged 
disorder. 

But — let  workingmen  note  the  distinction — 
only  two  of  these  twenty-seven  men  were  already 
married.  What  they  had  earned  already  was 
their  own.  They  were  able  to  move  about  from 
place  to  place  until  they  found  a  satisfactory 
opening  in  life.  Some  of  them  afterward  went 
to  the  dogs.  It  is  impossible  to  find  any  lot  of 
men  together  by  chance  in  which  there  will  not 
be  some  incompetents  and  some  who,  through 
one  failing  or  other,  would  be  their  own  enemies 
if  they  were  in  the  best  of  hands.  There  were 
only  twelve  men  in  the  first  company  of  assist- 
ants organized  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  one  of  them 
turned  out  to  be  a  scoundrel  in  spite  of  the  ex- 
cellent company  in  which  he  found  himself. 


CHAPTER'  XIII. 

IMMIGRATION. 

BECAUSE  this  is  a  land  of  liberty  a  great  many 
foreigners  imagine  it  a  land  of  license.  To  do 
them  justice,  they  do  not  know  any  better.  But 
we  do,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  teach  them  the  dif- 
ference. If  we  don't,  we,  not  they,  will  be  the 
principal  sufferers. 

The  subject  of  immigration  has  been  largely 
discussed  by  the  newspapers  of  late,  and  a  good 
deal  of  demagogy  has  been  got  off  in  Congress 
on  the  same  subject.  But  sensible  people  are 
pretty  well  agreed  that  it  is  time  to  put  some 
restriction  upon  the  use  of  America  as  a  common 
dumping  ground  for  the  world's  offal  and  rubbish. 
This  country  is  not  an  asylum  for  criminals  or 
paupers.  That  ought  to  go  without  saying  and 
it  should  not  require  any  argument  to  prove,  but 
it  seems  we  have  been  very  careless  in  this  direc- 
tion. A  short  time  ago  the  New  York  Herald 
said :  "America  is  no  longer  to  be  considered  the 
legitimate  dumping  ground  for  the  paupers,  the 
idiots,  the  insane  and  the  criminals  of  Europe," 
and  Congressman  Ford,  chairman  of  the  Immi- 

351 


352  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE.'* 

gration  Committee  and  father  of  the  bill  which 
was  presented  in  January,  made  the  statement 
that  "  if  the  law  could  be  strictly  enforced  I  be- 
lieve our  immigration  would  be  decreased  from 
these  sources  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  per  annum."  This  is  an  awful  propor- 
tion of  the  aggregate  of  immigration,  for  the 
entire  figure  exceeds  half  a  million  per  year  very 
little.  Still  Mr.  Ford  may  be  supposed,  from  his 
position,  to  know  what  he  is  talking  about,  for 
his  committee  has  spent  a  great  amount  of  time 
in  examining  a  great  many  witnesses  who  are 
supposed  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  immi- 
gration to  this  country  of  the  peoples  of  the 
whole  world.  But  enough  about  paupers,  idiots, 
insane  and  criminals  ;  everybody  is  agreed  that 
we  do  not  want  them. 

Are  there  any  other  classes  whom  we  do  not 
want  ?  Yes ;  we  cannot  afford  to  have  the  con- 
tract laborer.  The  native  labor  organizations 
have  talked  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  about  the 
foreigner,  but  not  on  this  one  subject.  The  impor- 
tation on  contract  of  men  to  do  a  certain  amount 
of  work  for  a  smaller  sum  than  American  citizens 
would  accept,  and  to  carry  back  almost  all  their 
earnings  to  be  spent  in  another  country,  is  a  very 
successful  way  of  making  a  nation  poor.  If  we 
were  to  send  all  of  our  money  to  Europe  for  the 
purchase  of  supplies  and  Europe  were  to  buy 
nothing  of  us  in  return,  it  would  soon  be  impos* 


—   7, 

5  ? 


IMMIGRATION.  353 

sible  to  raise  enough  coin  to  buy  a  postage  stamp. 
Yet  contract  labor  is  a  transaction  of  exactly  the 
same  nature,  and  it  is  increasing  at  a  rate  that 
may  be  estimated  from  the  known  ability  and 
willingness  of  large  employers  to  have  work  done 
as  cheaply  as  possible,  regardless  of  the  conse- 
quences to  every  one  but  themselves. 

When,  however,  statesmen  or  politicians,  or 
demagogues  or  well-meaning  labor  agitators  or 
leaders,  insist  that  skilled  labor  should  be  kept 
out  of  the  country,  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the 
community  to  firmly,  persistently  and  indig- 
nantly oppose  any  such  proposition.  Lack  of 
skilled  labor  is  the  curse  of  the  country.  Be- 
cause a  man  is  employed  on  work  which  requires 
skill  and  experience  is  no  sign  that  he  is  fully 
competent  to  do  it.  The  tramps  who  bind  the 
farmer's  wheat,  the  cast-aways  and  chance  laborers 
who  build  some  houses  in  the  West,  the  riff-raff 
who  are  gathered  together  occasionally  to  work  a 
mine,  or  sail  a  ship,  or  do  the  work  of  a  planta- 
tion or  a  farm  for  a  short  season,  are  the  most 
costly  labor  that  could  be  employed,  and  a  great 
deal  of  work  supposed  to  be  done  by  experts  in 
the  United  States  is  almost  as  expensive.  So 
long  as  we  don't  allow  young  men  to  learn  trades 
— and  that  seems  to  be  the  rule  at  present — we 
must  have  men  who  have  learned  trades  some- 
where else.  Plenty  of  Americans  can  be  found 
in  New  York  city  at  half  an  hour's  notice  who 


354  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

complain  with  real  patriotic  feeling  that,  while 
they  would  like  all  their  own  employes  to  be 
Americans,  they  cannot  find  a  large  number  or 
even  a  respectable  majority  of  natives  who  are 
sufficiently  skilled  to  do  the  work  for  which  they 
are  called  upon.  The  consumption  of  piano- 
fortes, for  instance,  in  the  United  States,  is 
twenty  times  as  great,  according  to  statistics  of 
trade,  as  in  any  other  country  of  equal  population 
in  the  world.  But  in  going  through  a  piano  fac- 
tory one  might  very  quickly  imagine  himself  in 
a  foreign  country.  It  is  not  that  the  manufac- 
turers are  all  foreigners,  for  they  are  not,  or  that 
they  prefer  foreign  labor,  or  that  foreign  piano- 
makers  work  cheaper  than  those  of  native  birth, 
but  simply  because  we  have  scarcely  any  of 
native  birth,  although  this  variety  of  manufac- 
turing industry  has  been  active  in  this  country 
for  nearly  two  generations. 

In  many  other  of  the  mechanical  arts  the 
same  lack  of  native  skilled  labor  is  manifested. 
The  wall-paper  printers,  the  engravers,  the  better 
class  of  weavers,  and  several  other  mechanical 
arts,  which  require  the  services  of.  draughtsmen 
and  colorists,  are  almost  all  obliged  to  depend 
upon  men  of  foreign  birth  for  their  work.  It  is 
pleasing  to  realize  that  most  of  these  foreign 
workmen  are  now  naturalized  American  citizens 
and  probably  quite  as  loyal  to  the  Union  and 
the  Constitution  as  any  of  our  native-born  oper- 


IMMIGRATION.  355 

atives,  but  the  probabilities  are,  that  as  they 
grow  old  or  disabled,  and  have  to  be  replaced,  the 
new  men  must  come  from  the  same  sources  as 
the  old.  Between  Americans  not  being  allowed 
to  learn  trades,  and  Americans  not  being  willing 
to  learn  trades,  we  are  pretty  badly  off  for 
mechanical  labor  unless  we  can  depend  upon 
foreign  countries. 

We  need  not  blame  foreigners  for  this ;  we 
have  only  our  own  selves  to  blame  and  our  own 
people.  The  reason  for  the  general  dependence 
upon  foreign  labor,  beside  the  inability  of  young 
men  who  wish  to  learn  a  trade  to  be  allowed  to 
follow  their  inclinations,  is  that  the  most  of  our 
own  people  are  rapidly  getting  above  anything 
and  everything  that  does  not  afford  an  oppor- 
tunity for  speculation.  Beside,  it  is  one  of  the 
inevitable  results  of  the  theory  of  social  equality, 
a  theory  which  must  do  a  great  deal  more  harm 
than  it  yet  has  done  before  we  abandon  it,  that, 
as  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  country  in- 
creases, and  new  opportunities  of  making  money 
multiply,  the  sons  of  farmers  and  mechanics 
will  be  reluctant  to  follow  the  occupations  of 
their  fathers.  We  have  heard  a  great  deal  about 
the  unwillingness  of  the  Hebrews  to  indulge  in 
any  mechanical  or  routine  labor,  and  their 
avidity  to  enter  all  branches  of  trade  where 
barter  and  sale  are  the  principal  occupations, 
but  the  modern  American  can  double  discount 


356        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

the  Hebrew  in  this  particular  and  then  get  ahead 
of  him  about  as  often  as  not. 

There  is  no  sign  that  the  native-born  Ameri- 
can youth  will  revert  to  the  good  old  custom  of 
his  fathers,  and  endeavor  to  learn  a  trade,  even 
if  he  were  able  to  do  it.  It  is  unfashionable  to 
work  with  one's  hands  in  a  country  where  most 
of  the  money  is  made  by  working  with  one's  wits. 
The  mechanic's  son,  and  the  farmer's  son,  and 
the  day  laborer's  son  gets  as  good  a  common- 
school  education  as  the  children  of  the  richest 
men  in  the  town,  and  has  equal  opportunities  for 
going  into  mercantile  business,  or  for  entering 
the  offices  of  business  houses  and  corporations, 
and  his  own  father  will  tell  him  that  he  is  a  fool 
unless  he  embraces  these  opportunities.  No 
man  gets  rich  by  farming  alone,  or  by  laboring 
at  day's  wages  at  any  mechanical  occupation, 
whereas  some  men  in  trade  and  speculation 
amass  great  fortunes.  That  forty-nine  out  of 
every  fifty  finally  fail  and  never  get  upon  their 
feet  again  does  not  occur  either  to  the  youth  or 
to  his  parents.  Let  us  hope  that  some  day  it 
will,  and  that  our  young  men  will  not  be 
ashamed  to  earn  their  bread  literally  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brow.  But  the  prospect  at  present 
for  any  such  change  seems  exceedingly  remote. 
Indeed,  until  the  change  occurs  we  will  need  all 
the  skilled  labor  we  can  get  from  abroad.  Unless 
the  supply  increases  we  will  either  have  to  give 


IMMIGRATION.  357 

up  some  of  our  country's  business  schemes  and 
prospects,  or  we  will  be  obliged  to  offer  a  bounty 
or  a  premium  to  foreign  laborers  to  come  over 
here. 

We  especially  need  foreign  farmers  and  work- 
men for  the  instruction  of  our  own  farmers,  and 
a  large  immigration  of  foreign  agriculturists,  if 
they  could  be  sprinkled  among  our  agricultural 
communities  in  the  various  States,  would  do 
more  than  any  proposed  legislation  to  improve 
the  condition  of  the  American  farmer.  In  his 
efforts  to  get  beyond  his  strength  and  resources, 
efforts  which  are  natural  in  all  new  countries, 
our  farmer  wastes  enough  to  support  another 
farmer.  The  Englishman,  or  Frenchman,  or 
German,  or  Swede,  can  teach  him  how  not  to  do 
this.  There  are  a  great  many  unprofitable  farms 
near  the  city  of  New  York,  but  when  you  see 
a  small  piece  of  ground  tilled  to  the  full  extent 
of  its  capacity,  and  sending  in  large  loads  of  fat 
vegetables  to  the  city  every  day,  you  may  safely 
bet  that  the  proprietor  is  a  foreigner.  In  one 
neighborhood  very  near  New  York  city,  a  lot  of 
discontented  farmers  are  envious  of  the  pros- 
perity of  one  fellow  who  is  tilling  only  thirteen 
acres,  yet  who  has  saved  enough  money  to  buy 
three  houses  in  the  city  of  New  York,  each  of 
which  yields  him  a  handsome  income.  And  who 
is  this  lucky  fellow  ?  A  highly  educated  Ger- 
man, or  a  scientific  English  fanner  ?  No ;  he  is 


358  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF    THEE." 

a  wretched  Laplander,  a  man  who  is  obliged  to 
be  ashamed  of  the  province  which  gave  him 
birth,  and  who  poses  among  acquaintances  as  a 
Swede.  He  was  a  common  farm  laborer  in  his 
own  country,  and  came  here  with  very  little 
more  money  than  would  pay  his  board  at  a  den 
near  the  Battery  for  two  or  three  days  until  some 
one  should  employ  him.  But  he  had  learned 
how  to  turn  every  scrap  of  soil  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage, how  to  make  the  most  of  all  fertilizers, 
and  how  to  get  the  largest  number  of  crops  out 
of  a  given  amount  of  soil  in  a  given  time. 
During  the  agricultural  depression  of  Great 
Britain  a  few  years  ago,  which  followed  several 
successive  wet  years,  a  number  of  English 
farmers  sold  out  at  a  sacrifice,  came  over  here 
and  located  wherever  best  they  could,  and  it  is 
astonishing  to  see  how  fast  some  of  these  men 
have  got  along,  and  how  well  fixed  they  now  are, 
as  the  saying  is.  They  didn't  seem  to  be  very 
smart  fellows.  In  a  horse-trade,  or  a  shooting- 
match,  or  a  political  squabble,  the  best  of  them 
cannot  hold  his  own  for  five  minutes  with  an  or- 
dinary American.  But  when  it  comes  to  farm- 
ing so  as  to  make  every  resource  of  the  estate 
count  for  all  that  it  is  worth,  they  leave  the 
American  farmer  far  behind. 

Nevertheless,  we  need  to  restrict  and  regulate 
more  systematically,  and  with  more  rigor  than 
we  ever  did  it  before.  Of  course  we  have  the 


IMMIGRATION.  359 

right  to  refuse  absolutely  undesirable  immigrants. 
No  one  can  deny  this  with  any  show  of  reason, 
and  if  we  would  fight  to  maintain  this  principle 
no  nation  could  blame  us.  But  we  also  have  the 
right  to  deny  citizenship  to  workmen  coming 
from  any  portion  of  the  world,  until  we  are  satis- 
fied that  they  intend  to  become  citizens,  and  that 
they  will  be  desirable  acquisitions.  We  are  quite 
competent  to  keep  up  our  own  supply  of  idiots, 
and  paupers  and  criminals.  No  nation  has  a 
monopoly  of  that  sort  of  thing,  and  we  do  quite 
as  well  in  that  way  as  could  be  expected  of  us, 
and  far  better  than  suits  our  tax-payers.  For  the 
freedom  of  mind  and  body,  and  the  prospects  of 
founding  homes  for  all  of  his  posterity,  an  honest 
man  should  be  willing  to  remain  in  this  country 
a  long  time  before  claiming  full  rights  of  citizen- 
ship. There  never  were  any  complaints  under 
the  old  rule,  which  required  a  very  long  term  of 
probation,  and  there  would  be  none  under  the  new. 
Property  rights  of  aliens  are  respected  quite  as 
much  as  those  of  natives,  and  there  is  no  other 
right  in  which  our  laws  distinguish  between  the 
native  and  the  foreigner.  A  chance  tourist  arriv- 
ing here  and  getting  into  legal  difficulty  of  any 
kind  has  quite  as  good  a  chance  of  obtaining 
justice  as  the  richest  man  in  the  nation.  This 
is  not  an  American  idea,  for  foreigners  themselves 
have  said  the  same.  Intelligent  foreigners, 
makers  of  opinion  on  the  other  side  of  the  water, 


360  "  MY   COUNTRY,  TTiS   OF  THEE." 

have  marvelled  again  and  again  in  speech  and  in 
print  at  the  carelessness  with  which  America 
admitted  all  classes  of  foreign-born  persons  to  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  and  have  declared  that  were 
citizenship  rights  to  be  delayed  until  the  second 
generation  came  of  adult  age,  there  would  be 
nothing  in  the  law  or  customs  of  the  country 
which  would  give  a  foreign-born  resident  any 
reason  for  complaint. 

Unless  we  restrict  immigration  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  any  foreign  nation,  desiring  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  us  so  as  to  steal  some  of  our  property, 
or  have  some  of  her  own  troublesome  inhabitants 
disposed  of  by  bullet  wounds,  or  "to  weld  the 
people  together"  when  they  are  pulling  every 
which  way,  from  sending  a  few  carefully  selected 
men  here  for  the  express  purpose  of  fitting  out  a 
pretended  dynamite  expedition  or  something  of 
the  kind,  for  which  the  United  States  would  be 
called  to  account.  But  that  is  only  part  of  what 
they  Can  do.  At  the  present  day  every  German 
and  Frenchman  under  middle  age  has  received  a 
military  training.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  a 
few  thousand  picked  soldiers,  with  their  officers, 
being  sent  here  in  small  parties  in  the  guise  of 
ordinary  immigrants,  to  rail}'-  and  rise  at  a  given 
signal,  seize  some  of  our  cities,  forts  and  navy- 
yards,  overcome  our  make-believe  army  and  es- 
tablish a  reign  of  terror,  from  which  we  could 
not  release  ourselves  speedily  without  ransom, 


IMMIGRATION.  361 

They  could  find  arms  and  munitions  of  war  with- 
out the  slightest  trouble,  for  such  things  are  on 
sale  to  every  purchaser  in  every  village  in  the 
land,  and  when  desired  in  large  quantities  they 
can  be  purchased  from  any  of  our  large  manu- 
facturers without  the  purchaser  first  undergoing 
the  formality  of  answering  unpleasant  questions. 
As  for  commissariat,  they  could  live  on  the  land. 
There  is  no  portion  of  it  from  which  a  body  of 
armed  men  could  not  obtain  all  they  need  in  the 
way  of  food  and  clothing.  There  would  be  no 
difference  between  such  a  movement  and  the 
insurrections  by  which  almost  all  of  the  older 
nations  have  suffered  from  time  to  time — insur- 
rections some  of  which  have  been  dignified  by 
success  to  the  rank  of  revolutions.  The  mobs 
which  started  the  French  revolution  had  a  large 
army  to  oppose  them,  and  they  had  little  oppor- 
tunity for  arming  and  organizing  themselves, 
nevertheless  they  succeeded  in  overturning  one 
of  the  oldest  monarchies  in  the  world,  and  "ap- 
parently one  of  the  strongest. 

Among  the  classes  whom  we  must  most  reso- 
lutely exclude  from  this  country  are  those  which, 
in  good  earnest  and  with  justifiable  sense  of 
wrong,  but  nevertheless  with  utter  disregard  of 
the  land  of  their  adoption,  organize  disturbances 
to  be  carried  on  in  the  lands  from  which  they 
come.  Russian  nihilists,  disaffected  Canadians, 
Irish  dynamiters,  French  socialists  and  auar- 


362        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE."' 

chists,  and  all  the  other  broods  of  disturbers  of 
the  peace  of  foreign  lands  are  out  of  place  in  the 
United  States.  Many  of  them  have  abundant 
cause  for  the  hatred  which  they  manifest  toward 
the  governments  from  which  they  have  escaped. 
Most  of  them  have  the  sympathy  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  to  the  extent  of  wishing 
that  desirable  reforms  might  be  accomplished  in 
lands  where  any  classes  are  wrongly  treated  or 
find  themselves  at  disadvantage  in  comparison 
with  other  classes  more  favored.  But  this  coun- 
try cannot  afford  to  be  a  hot-bed  of  discontent 
from  which  the  germs  may  be  sent  abroad. 
When  the  time  for  accounting  comes,  the  bill 
will  not  be  sent  to  the  disturbers,  but  to  the 
nation  which  harbored  them.  We  have  been 
dangerously  near  war  with  Great  Britain  two  or 
three  times  on  account  of  the  operations  of  the 
large  class  generally  known  as  Irish  sympa- 
thizers. There  is  probably  no  class  of  foreign- 
born  residents  of  the  United  States  who  have 
more  reason  in  law  and  morals  for  the  feeling 
which  they  manifest  than  these  same  Irish 
sympathizers.  But  when  they  come  here  as 
citizens  the  safety  of  this  country,  which  we  have 
the  right  to  regard  as  an  interest  paramount  to 
that  of  any  other  which  may  exist  in  the  hearts 
of  our  people,  must  rank  first.  If  this  class  or 
any  other  class  of  disturbers  of  the  peace  of 
foreign  countries  persist  in  their  agitation  on  this 


IMMIGRATION.  363 

side  of  the  water,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  nation  to 
expel  them.  Where  they  may  go  is  an  important 
question  to  them,  but  it  is  not  one  with  which 
we  can  afford  to  concern  ourselves.  Perhaps 
there  may  be  individuals  among  us  who  would 
take  personal  friends  into  their  families  with  the 
understanding  that  they  came  there  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  making  trouble  with  their  families ; 
but  nations  have  none  of  that  sort  of  disinterested 
philanthropy.  The  few  that  have  tried  it  cannot 
be  found  to-day  on  the  maps  of  any  well-edited 
atlas. 

The  United  States  has  nothing  to  fear  from 
honest,  well-meaning  immigrants,  no  matter  how 
stupid  they  are.  Transplanting  does  wonders 
for  wild-wood  trees  and  shrubs  that  amount  to 
nothing  in  their  native  wastes,  and  the  improve- 
ment which  some  unpromising  foreign  stock  has 
often  made  in  this  country  recalls  the  traditional 
remark  of  the  Bad  Habit  to  the  Small  Boy :  "  Look 
at  me  now  and  the  day  you  got  me."  Some  of 
the  most  exquisite  gentlemen  and  able  men  of 
our  land  descended  from  clodhoppers  of  no  one 
nationality,  who  came  to  this  country  only  a 
generation  or  two  ago.  Some  of  the  wisest  and 
grandest  spirits  of  our  revolutionary  periods  were 
descendants  of  articled  servants  who  came  away 
not  many  years  before.  But,  pshaw !  Which  of 
us  who  has  not  pure  Indian  blood  in  his  veins 
did  not  descend  from  immigrants  who  a  little 


364  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

while  ago  were  so  badly  off  in  the  old  country 
that  they  had  to  move  to  get  enough  to  eat  and 
wear?  Some  self-appointed  aristocrats  may  ex- 
cept to  this  general  classification,  but  either  they 
lie  or  they  don't  know  why  their  ancestors  came 
here.  No  foreigner  who  is  living  comfortably  at 
home,  and  who  has  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  is 
going  to  a  new  country  unless  he  has  some  un- 
rest in  him  which  will  make  him  a  nuisance  if  he 
remains  at  home.  Of  course  political  annoy- 
ances have  been  influential  in  sending  us  many 
immigrants,  but  very  few  from  the  classes  who 
have  any  possible  excuse  for  thinking  themselves 
better  than  other  men.  The  development  of  fine 
natures  from  very  rude  stock  in  the  United  States 
has  been  so  marvellous  in  some  of  its  instances 
as  to  deserve  a  large  book  specially  devoted  to 
the  subject.  A  little  while  ago  it  was  discovered 
that  a  famous  judge,  whose  opinions  and  rulings 
are  held  in  respect  in  courts  of  every  State  of 
this  Union,  was  the  son  of  a  pauper  immigrant. 
A  gentleman  who  was  very  favorably  mentioned 
a  few  years  ago  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States  said  himself  that  his  father, 
who  was  an  immigrant,  was  so  poor  that  the  son 
went  to  school  without  breakfast  for  five  succes- 
sive years,  and  acquaintances  of  this  estimable 
and  highly  cultivated  gentleman,  who  stood  at 
the  very  head  of  one  of  the  most  learned  profes- 
sions, said  that  the  father  was  unable  to  read  or 


IMMIGRATION.  365 

write  at  the  time  of  his  death.  The  population 
of  the  State  of  California  started  with  men  of  all 
classes  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Probably 
more  adventurers  and  worthless  men  took  part  in 
the  rush  for  gold  than  can  be  found  in  all  the 
state-prisons  of  the  United  States  at  the  present 
day.  Yet  the  descendants  of  some  of  these  very 
objectionable  characters  are  to-day  men  of  promi- 
nence and  character.  The  natives  of  that  State 
attributed  this  wonderful  change  to  the  "  glorious 
climate  of  California."  But  it  is  not  necessary 
to  make  any  such  explanation.  Cases  of  the 
same  kind,  though  not  perhaps  in  so  large  pro- 
portion, can  be  found  in  all  the  States  of  the 
Union.  It  is  impossible  that  it  should  be  other- 
wise. Whatever  may  happen  to  the  original 
immigrant,  his  posterity  has  as  fair  a  chance  as 
that  of  any  native.  His  children  go  to  the  same 
schools,  the  same  churches,  they  mingle  freely 
with  all  persons  of  their  own  age,  have  the  same 
interests,  same  impulses,  aspirations,  and  oppor- 
tunities. 

There  is  another  great  promise  to  this  country 
also  through  its  immigrant  population,  which 
may  not  be  announced  as  a  fact,  but  which  cer- 
tainly has  a  great  deal  of  probability  in  it.  Mr. 
Darwin,  who  in  tracing  the  descent  of  species 
seemed  to  interest  himself  in  the  descent  of 
everything  else,  explained  once  the  method  by 
which  forests  suddenly  appear  upon  some  tracts 


366  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

of  land  which  apparently  had  been  long  destitute 
of  any  of  the  larger  varieties  of  vegetation.  He 
found  upon  examination  of  one  such  tract  that 
while  the  arboreal  shoots  which  had  first  come 
into  view  that  year  were  small,  they  nevertheless 
had  enormous  roots.  Ploughing  and  cultivation 
had  kept  the  soil  above  these  roots  broken  for  a 
great  many  years,  or  cattle  in  grazing  over  the 
ground  had  kept  everything  nipped  short.  Nev- 
ertheless the  roots  or  germs  were  there,  and 
through  the  very  process  of  repression  seemed  to 
accumulate  a  strength  which  they  put  forth,  when 
they  were  allowed  to  do  so,  as  if  they  were 
making  up  for  lost  time,  which  was  exactly  the 
deduction  which  Mr.  Darwin  made  in  longer  and 
more  scholarly  form.  It  is  known  to  breeders  that 
the  strain  of  families  of  various  species  is  fre- 
quently improved  by  infusion  of  the  blood  of  an 
animal  of  the  sort  commonly  known  as  a  "runt;" 
that  is,  one  which  has  been  stunted  in  its  growth. 
The  average  immigrant  is  a  man  who  has  been 
repressed  for  generations  and  perhaps  for  cen- 
turies. When  his  opportunity  for  development 
comes  he  really  seems  to  have  the  capacity  to 
make  up  for  lost  time.  There  is  no  other  way 
of  explaining  the  wonderful  improvement  in 
many  thousands  of  American  families  of  foreign 
extraction.  There  have  been  some  amusing  re- 
sults of  efforts  of  men,  suddenly  become  promi- 
nent and  deservedly  so,  in  tracing  their  ancestry. 


IMMIGRATION.  367 

They  learned  what  Burns  once  expressed  about 
himself  after  he  had  made  similar  investigations : 

"Through  scoundrels'  blood 
My  race  has  crept,  e'er  since  the  flood." 

The  wonderful  virility  and  prosperity  of  the 
Hebrew  in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  those 
European  countries  where  he  has  been  allowed  a 
chance  beside  his  fellow-men,  cannot  be  explained 
except  upon  this  theory  of  accumulated  strength 
during  long  periods  of  repression. 

Americans  can  stand  all  this  sort  of  thing  that 
Europe  can  bless  us  with.  According  to  stat- 
isticians it  costs  two  or  three  thousand  dollars  to 
bring  a  child  from  the  cradle  up  to  adult  age  and 
working  power.  Consequently  every  able-bodied 
foreigner  we  get  who  is  willing  to  work  is  worth 
two  or  three  thousand  dollars  to  our  nation  and 
is  so  much  capital  in  our  pockets.  Let  us  have 
all  we  can  of  them.  The  men  who  complain  of 
them  are  those  who  are  not  capable  of  taking 
care  of  themselves. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ANNEXATION. 

THIS  country  has  many  important  duties  to 
fulfil  in  the  family  of  nations,  but  annexation 
of  other  lands  is  not  one  of  them. 

The  contrary  opinion  is  sometimes  expressed, 
but  the  sooner  we  sit  down  upon  it  the  less  likely 
we  are  to  neglect  our  own  business. 

Annexation  is  an  old  business,  and  sometimes 
it  has  been  profitable ;  but  the  nations  who  best 
understood  it  have  but  few  of  their  old  posses- 
sions left,  and  they  would  get  rid  of  some  of 
these,  if  they  could  without  being  laughed  at. 

What  nations  could  we  stand  any  fair  chance 
of  annexing?  Perhaps  Mexico,  Canada  and 
some  of  the  West  India  Islands.  What  could 
be  done  with  them  ?  Nothing  that,  in  the  long 
run,  would  benefit  us.  What  would  they  do 
with  us  ?  They  would  merely  introduce  discord- 
ant elements  that  would  not  help  us  a  particle  in 
making  our  own  national  position  secure.  Our 
country  is  so  large  already  that  there  are  jarring 
interests  making  themselves  felt  and  known  in 
Congress,  in  the  press,  in  public  opinion,  and 

368 


CO.Ffi/i-A.     ~ 

ADMINISTRATION    BUILDINC. 


ANNEXATION.  369 

with  all  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  they  are 
approaching  solution  at  so  slow  a  rate  that  a 
number  of  the  advocates  of  one  side  or  the  other 
are  discouraged  and  indignant.  There  are  a 
great  many  brilliant  theories  of  what  might  be 
done  by  the  annexation  of  this  or  that  country 
by  the  United  States.  But  an  ounce  of  fact  is 
worth  a  ton  of  theory,  and  fortunately  we  have 
enough  facts  to-  keep  us  for  a  long  time  in  exam- 
ination if  we  will  take  the  pains. 

The  ancient  nation  called  Rome  was  the 
champion  annexer  of  the  world.  She  annexed 
every  territory  that  it  was  possible  for  her  sol- 
diers to  reach,  and  at  one  time  the  entire  world 
owed  allegiance  to  Rome.  It  was  practical  alle- 
giance, too,  because  we  read  in  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  Matthew  that  in  the  days  of 
Augustus  Caesar  there  went  out  a  decree  that  all 
the  world  should  be  taxed.  To  collect  taxes 
from  annexed  countries  is  more  than  some  mod- 
ern nations  have  ever  been  able  to  do.  The  mil- 
itary and  political  prestige  of  Rome  was  after- 
ward strengthened  by  religion.  Rome  ruled  the 
souls  as  well  as  the  bodies  and  estates  of  men, 
but  even  the  Holy  Roman  empire  went  to  pieces. 

Greece  did  a  great  deal  of  annexing  in  the 
days  of  Alexander,  who  penetrated  farther  into 
the  civilizations  of  the  Bast  than  the  legions  of 
the  Caesars  ever  did,  but  Greece  to-day  is  a  mere 
spot  upon  the  map. 

24 


370  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  so  far  back.  The 
great  colonizing  and  annexing  schemes  of  the 
world,  when  nation  after  nation  became  numer- 
ous and  free  enough  to  compete  with  each  other, 
began  soon  after  the  discovery  of  America. 
Nearly  every  European  power  planted  colonies 
in  some  portions  of  the  new  world.  Most  of  these 
powers  exist  and  are  strong  to-day.  But  where 
are  their  colonies  ?  England  has  Canada  to  be 
sure,  simply  because  she  does  not  know  how  to 
get  rid  of  it.  But  Spain  has  not  a  foot  of  ground 
upon  the  mainland  of  America,  and  holds  her 
island  possessions  by  very  uncertain  tenure. 
Look  at  Cuba,  "  the  ever-faithful  island,"  as  she  is 
called,  with  the  greatest  extremity  of  sarcasm. 
The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  detest  the  mother 
country  and  all  the  officials  she  sends  out  there, 
her  taxes  are  paid  grudgingly,  again  and  again 
a  large  minority  of  the  inhabitants  have  struggled 
to  free  themselves  from  the  Spanish  yoke,  and 
the  struggle  will  probably  continue  in  view  of 
the  illustrious  examples  set  by  Mexico  and  all 
the  South  American  republics.  Perhaps  you  will 
say  that  Spain  is  a  bankrupt  old  brute.  Well, 
that  is  not  overstating  the  matter  at  all.  But 
look  from  Spain  to  Holland.  The  Dutch  have 
not  been  cruel  taskmasters.  They  have  planted 
a  number  of  colonies,  and  their  paternal  govern- 
ment, if  characterized  by  thrift,  has  also  been 
unstained  by  any  of  the  cruelties  and  brutalities 


ANNEXATION.  371 

which  have  made 'the  name  of  Spain  a  synonym 
for  savagery.  How  many  of  Holland's  colonies 
remain  in  the  possession  of  the  mother  country  ? 
None  of  any  consequence  except  the  island  of 
Java,  and  Java  is  no  longer  a  treasury  for  Hol- 
land. 

France  at  one  time  had  large  colonial  posses- 
sions. She  owned  nearly  one-half  of  the  territory 
now  embraced  by  the  boundaries  of  the  United 
States  and  all  of  Canada  beside.  France  has  now 
a  few  insignificant  islands  and  some  undesirable 
swamp-land  in  Africa,  which  is  valuable  chiefly 
as  a  place  to  send  military  officers  who  are  so 
ambitious  at  home  as  to  be  somewhat  trouble- 
some. Sweden  has  no  colonies  at  all.  Denmark 
has  two  or  three  little  islands  near  the  Equator, 
and  has  an  elephant  on  her  hands  in  the  shape 
of  Iceland. 

But,  you  say  that  England  is  an  exception  to 
all  these  relations.  Well ;  is  she  ?  Do  facts  and 
figures  justify  the  assertion?  The  most  peace- 
able portion  of  the  British  empire  at  the  present 
time  is  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  Canada  gives 
England  absolutely  no  trouble  on  her  own  part. 
Australia  is  about  as  good.  But  of  what  use  is 
either  country  to  England  except  as  a  resort  for 
dissatisfied  Englishmen  who  wish  to  begin  life 
anew  somewhere  else? — an  opportunity  which 
they  could  have  equally  well  if  England  didn't 
own  a  particle  of  soil  outside  the  British  islands. 


372        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

But  England  has  a  large  empire  in  the  East. 
She  holds  nearly  all  of  India.  Yes ;  but  how 
does  she  hold  it  ?  Some  of  it  by  absolute  posses- 
sion, and  a  great  deal  through  protectorates  and 
treaties,  through  intrigues  with  native  princes 
and  by  other  means  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  would  think  beneath  the  dignity 
of  our  own  country  to  exercise  anywhere  else. 
We  know  what  happened  in  India  a  few  years 
ago  when  great  masses  of  people  rose  against 
English  rule,  and  gave  us  the  most  horrible  de- 
tails of  war  that  this  century  has  ever  heard  of. 
England's  unrest  and  uneasiness  about  her  pos- 
sessions in  India  can  be  seen  by  any  one  who 
reads  the  English  newspapers  or  magazines  or 
reviews.  Some  phase  or  other  of  the  Indian 
question  is  continually  popping  up,  and  there 
never  is  anything  in  it  to  pacify  the  national  un- 
rest as  to  the  future  of  the  two  countries.  The 
possibility  of  assimilation  of  the  population  of 
India  and  England  is  laughed  at  by  Englishmen 
of  all  degrees.  Britons  will  not  live  in  India  un- 
less they  are  compelled  to  do  so,  and  also  coaxed 
by  compensation  such  as  Englishmen  never  ex- 
pect to  receive  at  home.  Even  in  the  days  of 
"John  Company"  it  was  impossible  to  keep  an 
army  there  without  double  pay.  I  am  not  cer- 
tain about  the  private  soldiers,  but  the  officers 
received  their  pay  from  the  home  government  and 


ANNEXATION.  373 

an  equal  amount  from  the  company,  and  even 
then  the  majority  of  them  were  discontented. 

As  for  the  natives  liking  England  or  English 
habits  or  English  customs,  it  would  be  unreason- 
able to  expect  it,  even  did  not  facts  prove  that  it 
is  impossible.  Native  Indians  of  wealth  and 
intelligence  frequently  visit  England  but  very 
few  remain.  What  is  called  the  superior  civiliza- 
tion of  the  West  has  no  charms  for  them.  And 
they  don't  take  English  customs  and  principles 
home  with  them  to  disseminate  among  their  own 
class  and  the  orders  beneath  it.  Many  intelligent 
natives  will  admit  that  portions  of  the  country 
are  better  ruled  than  they  were  under  the  native 
princes  a  hundred  or  more  years  ago.  But  at 
heart  the  feeling  is  that  the  old  ways,  if  not  the 
best,  are  certainly  the  most  desirable  and  the 
most  fitted  to  the  nature  of  the  people.  England 
is  in  chronic  fear  of  uprisings  and  disturbances. 
Her  most  statesmanlike  public  officials  and  her 
ablest  soldiers  are  sent  to  India;  not  enough  of 
them  can  be  spared  even  to  cross  the  channel  to 
Ireland. 

And,  speaking  of  Ireland,  which  is  another  of 
Great  Britain's  annexations,  is  there  a  more 
prominent  and  damning  disgrace  existing  in  the 
name  of  any  civilized  government  of  the  world  ? 
It  is  not  necessary  to  go  over  the  Irish  question 
at  all.  Every  man  knows  enough  about  it  to 
know  that  England's  rule  of  Ireland  has  been  an 


374         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THKK." 

entire  and  disgraceful  failure,  and  that  with 
ample  opportunities  for  colonization,  for  main- 
taining military  establishments,  for  pacifying  the 
people,  England  has  persistently  and  continu- 
ously failed  to  make  Ireland  anything  but  a  hot- 
bed of  hatred. 

Where  England  is  at  peace  with  her  colonies, 
what  price  does  she  pay  ?  Why,  she  simply 
makes  them  almost  absolutely  independent  of 
the  home  government.  Except  nominal  alle- 
giance to  the  mother  country  and  the  acceptance 
of  a  viceroy,  governor-general,  or  representative 
of  the  throne  by  some  title  or  other,  these  coun- 
tries are  almost  as  free  of  England  as  the  United 
States.  They  have  their  own  parliaments,  elect 
their  own  officials,  make  their  own  laws,  assess 
their  own  taxes,  and  even  perpetrate  huge  tariff 
lists,  under  which  the  products  of  the  mother 
country  are  obliged  to  pay  handsomely  for  being 
admitted  at  all.  The  only  bond  between  Canada 
or  Australia  and  England  is  one  of  affection  to 
the  mother  country.  This  sometimes  endures  to 
the  second  generation,  but  there  is  precious  little 
of  it  in  the  third.  You  can  easily  enough  find 
that  out  for  yourself  by  going  up  to  Canada  and 
becoming  acquainted  in  almost  any  town  in  the 
Dominion.  It  seems  farcical,  but  it  is  neverthe- 
less a  fact,  that  the  best  English  citizens  in  Can- 
ada are  Frenchmen,  descendants  of  the  original 
settlers  who  fought  England  furiously  and  often 


ANNEXATION.  375 

successfully  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 
And  the  only  ground  for  the  loyalty  of  these 
people  is  apparently  that  there  is  no  other  place 
for  them  to  go,  and  no  way  to  take  with  them 
what  little  they  possess. 

Australia  is  just  as  independent  as  Canada. 
If  she  should  attempt  to  secede  and  declare  her- 
self as  independent  as  she  really  is,  England 
would  probably  send  down  fleets  and  armies,  and 
there  would  be  war  for  a  long  time,  with  the  same 
result  in  the  end  that  followed  the  attempt  to 
change  the  opinions  of  the  thirteen  colonies  who 
organized  this  nation  of  ours.  England's  rule  of 
the  United  States  certainly  was  not  severe.  Now 
that  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution  has  been  watered 
out  through  two  or  three  generations,  it  is  per- 
fectly safe  to  admit  that  England  never  took  as 
much  money  out  of  this  country  as  she  put  into 
it.  So,  regarded  as  a  business  enterprise,  annex- 
ation or  colonization  did  not  pay  here.  As  soon 
as  she  began  to  demand  taxes  from  the  colonies 
the  revolt  began.  The  question  of  her  moral 
right  is  one  that  is  not  discussed  now.  Discus- 
sion would  not  do  any  good.  But  if  taxes  cannot 
be  levied  upon  a  colony  or  an  annexed  country, 
of  what  possible  service  is  the  new  land  to  the 
old? 

Well,  what  is  our  lesson  from  all  this  ?  What 
would  be  the  result  of  our  annexing  either  Mex- 
ico, Canada,  or  Cuba,  for  instance,  to  say  nothing 


376         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

of  the  small  republics  in  the  Caribbean  Sea  and 
in  Central  America,  toward  which  some  of  our 
demagogues  have  occasionally  pretended  to  cast 
longing  eyes,  and  found  a  few  fools  to  encourage 
them  in  doing  so  ?  It  would  be  utterly  impossible 
under  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  for  us  to  treat 
any  such  land  as  &  conquered  country.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  would  have  to  be 
completely  overturned  before  we  could  consist- 
ently enter  upon  any  such  custom.  The  most 
that  we  could  do  would  be  to  admit  these  coun- 
tries as  portions  of  the  Union.  We  would  scarcely 
pretend  to  obtain  them  by  force  for  this  purpose, 
but  if  we  were  to  want  to  get  them  peaceably, 
what  would  be  the  only  method?  Why,  by 
granting  them  equal  rights  with  our  own  citizens. 
Successful  annexation  would  depend  upon  the 
acquiescence  of  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  countries  alluded  to.  These  people,  like 
people  everywhere  else,  have  leaders  of  their  own. 
All  leaders  have  aspirations  and  personal  ambi- 
tions, and  personal  pockets  which  never  are  suffi- 
ciently full.  We  would  have  to  provide  for  them 
first  before  we  could  be  certain  of  the  people. 
We  would  be  obliged  to  divide  each  country  into 
States  bearing  some  proportion  of  population  to 
those  which  we  already  have.  We  would  be 
obliged  to  give  them  representation  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  provide  judicial  systems  for  them, 
and  in  every  way  recognize  them  as  our  equals. 


ANNEXATION.  377 

Now,  the  truth  is,  no  sane  American  believes 
the  people  of  any  of  those  countries  to  be  equal 
to  those  of  our  own.  There  are  intelligent  Mex- 
icans and  Cubans  and  Canadians,  but  we  as  a 
body  have  very  little  respect  for  the  general  run 
of  people  in  those  countries ;  no  more  respect 
than  their  own  rulers  have,  and  that  is  very- 
little.  Some  exception  must  be  made  in  the  case 
of  Canada,  which  is  inhabited,  so  far  as  the  whites 
are  concerned,  mainly  by  intelligent  people.  But 
Mexico,  according  to  its  own  statesmen  and  ac- 
cording to  all  travellers  who  have  been  in  it,  is 
practically  a  semi-civilized  country.  The  most 
of  the  inhabitants  are  deplorably  ignorant.  Free- 
dom of  ballot  is  an  utter  farce.  Law  is  a  matter 
of  barter,  and  life  and  property,  while  nominally 
secure,  are  frequently  threatened  by  uprisings 
which  no  local  government  has  yet  been  able  to 
promptly  suppress,  and  which  certainly  could 
not  be  suppressed  by  a  central  government  three 
thousand  miles  away  with  an  army  of  the  con- 
ventional size  of  that  of  the  United  States. 

Cuba  is  worse  than  Mexico  rather  than  better. 
Cuba  has  been  in  a  condition  of  discpntent  and 
disturbance  for  so  long  that  there  are  but  few 
portions  of  the  island  on  which  life  and  property 
are  safe.  The  majority  of  the  voters  can  be  pur- 
chased at  any  election  time  for  a  very  small  out- 
lay of  money  or  rum,  and  the  same  purchased 
voters  could  be  persuaded  by  similar  means  to 


378         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OK  THEE." 

rise  within  a  week  against  the  newly  elected 
authorities,  even  if  all  happened  to  be  their  own 
candidates  for  office.  The  class  of  representa- 
tives which  Cuba  would  be  obliged  to  send  to 
Washington  could  not  possibly  be  expected  to 
have  any  interest  in  national  legislation  except 
such  as  pertained  to  their  own  portion  of  the 
land.  They  have  no  sympathies  of  any  sort  with 
any  portion  of  the  people  or  industries  or  aspira- 
tions of  the  United  States.  It  would  be  unfair  to 
expect  it  of  them.  By  birth  and  tradition  they 
are  radically  different  from  us.  Their  isolation 
from  us  would  be  none  the  less  even  were  they 
part  of  our  country,  and  the  consequence  would 
be  an  alien  class,  demanding  everything  and 
yielding  nothing,  exactly  what  would  be  the  case 
were  we  to  annex  Mexico. 

Canada  may  drift  to  us  in  time.  Some  states- 
men on  both  sides  of  the  line  regard  this  as  in- 
evitable. Well,  what  must  be  will  be.  But  be- 
fore any  such  marriage  of  nations  there  ought  to 
be  a  long  courtship  between  the  parties.  At 
present  there  is  no  love  whatever  between  them, 
and  until  there  is  a  marked  change  in  this  respect 
the  union  would  be  too  utterly  selfish  on  each 
side  to  be  safe  for  either.  We  want  some  things 
from  Canada,  it  is  true.  We  have  used  up  most 
of  our  visible  supply  of  standing  timber,  and  we 
could  find  enough  in  Canada  for  a  century  to 
come  to  make  up  for  all  deficiencies.  But  what 


ANNEXATION.  379 

else  would  we  get?  Very  little.  We  assume 
that  Canada  will  buy  a  great  deal  from  us.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  the  majority  of  our 
people  that  Canada  is  not  a  large  purchasing 
country.  Canada  has  not  only  no  rich  class,  as 
we  regard  the  expression,  but  her  well-to-do  class 
is  poor,  and  the  majority  of  her  people  are  not 
only  very  poor,  but  have  very  few  needs  and  de- 
mands to  be  supplied  even  had  they  unlimited 
means.  The  French  Canadians,  who  are  probably 
the  most  industrious  of  the  population,  live  more 
plainly  than  any  American  would  believe  until 
he  had  travelled  in  the  country  largely.  They 
are  so  poor  that  they  regard  themselves  in  para- 
dise financially  when  they  can  find  occupation 
upon  American  fishing  vessels  and  in  American 
factories.  The  pay  of  factory  hands  in  the  East- 
ern States  is  very  small,  as  the  trades'  unions 
have  informed  us  frequently  and  without  any 
exaggeration,  but  it  is  infinitely  better  than  any- 
thing that  the  young  men  and  young  women  of 
Lower  Canada  could  find  at  home.  The  home 
of  the  French  Canadian,  who  seems  to  be  entirely 
contented,  contains  so  little  furniture  that  to  the 
poor  mechanic  of  a  Northern  city  it  would  seem 
very  bare  and  empty.  The  farming  population 
of  English  birth  is  better  off,  lives  better  and  has 
broader  and  more  expensive  tastes.  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  have  tastes  and  quite  a  different  thing 
to  have  the  means  to  gratify  them.  The  means 


380         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

would  not  be  any  greater  if  those  people  were 
citizens  of  the  United  States  than  they  are  now. 

One  thing  we  would  receive  in  bountiful  meas- 
ure from  Canada  were  we  to  annex  her,  and  that 
is  debt.  She  is  loaded  with  debt  in  proportion 
to  the  assessed  value  of  everything  within  her 
borders  about  five  times  as  heavily  as  the  United 
States,  and  let  no  one  imagine  that  the  Canadian 
is  going  to  be  fool  enough  to  become  part  of  our 
country  and  pay  a  proportion  of  our  debts  with- 
out having  her  own  debts  paid  by  us.  The 
Canadian  debt  and  ours  would  have  to  be  amal- 
gamated, with  the  result  that  each  individual 
taxpayer  of  the  United  States  would  have  to 
take  a  share  in  paying,  literally  paying,  for 
Canada. 

I  know"  that  a  great  deal  is  said  about  the  vex- 
atious questions  that  would  be  entirely  disposed 
of  were  Canada  to  become  part  of  this  Union. 
But  would  we  really  get  rid  of  them  ?  All  of  the 
territory  to  the  north  of  us  is  not  strictly  Cana- 
dian. Some  of  it  still  belongs  to  England,  and 
even  if  England  were  quite  willing  to  be  entirely 
rid  of  the  Dominion,  she  would  keep  a  foothold 
here  if  only  for  the  purpose  of  having  a  source 
of  food  supply  from  the  fisheries.  Nearly  two 
hundred  years  ago,  when  the  British  islands  were 
nowhere  near  as  populous  as  at  present,  and  the 
sea  yielded  a  bountiful  harvest  all  along  the 
British  coast,  England  fought  France  savagely 


ANNEXATION.  381 

( 

on  the  fisheries  question,  and  America  so  fully 
sympathized  with  her  as  to  assist  her  to  the  best 
of  her  ability.  So,  as  long  as  England  is  any- 
where on  our  border,  it  would  be  useless  to  im- 
agine ourselves  rid  of  her  as  a  possible  enemy. 
She  could  concentrate  troops  and  munitions  of 
war  quite  as  easily  upon  any  large  island  or  point 
of  the  upper  half  of  North  America  as  she  can  in 
Canada.  She  might  not  be  quite  so  near  our 
border  or  have  so  many  opportunities  for  crossing, 
but  she  would  be  far  enough  away  for  us  not  to 
be  able  to  watch  her  so  closely. 

The  only  purposes  of  annexation,  now  that 
men  are  no  longer  stolen  and  killed  for  the  nomi- 
nal reason  that  we  wish  to  make  Christians  of 
them,  are  to  get  something  worth  having  for  its 
own  sake  or  to  find  a  place  of  overflow  for  surplus 
population.  None  of  our  neighbors  are  rich  ex- 
cept in  debt.  They  have  nothing  we  want  which 
we  cannot  get  cheaper  by  purchase  than  at  the 
expense  of  time,  money  and  patience  that  even 
peaceable  annexation  would  require.  N 

As  for  receptacles  of  overflow,  we  already  have 
enough  to  last  us  a  century  or  two.  Do  not  take 
any  stock  in  the  story  that  there  is  no  more  gov- 
ernment land  worth  having,  and  that  there  are 
no  more  chances  for  the  poor  man  in  the  United 
States.  I  know  that  such  stories  are  told  fre- 
quently by  those  who  are  supposed  to  know  most 
about  it.  The  younger  men  of  the  farming  com- 


382  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

munities  of  the  West,  some  thousands  of  them, 
have  been  howling  for  years  to  be  allowed  to 
enter  the  so-called  territory  of  Oklahoma.  But 
if  to  each  of  the  majority  of  these  men  were  given 
a  quarter  section  of  land  in  the  Garden  of  Para- 
dise as  it  existed  before  the  fall  of  Adam,  they 
would  still  be  looking  out  for  some  new  location. 
There  is  a  great  floating,  discontented  mass  of 
people  in  the  new  countries.  The  proportion  is 
quite  as  great  as  it  is  in  the  large  cities.  There 
are  many  farmers  in  the  West  who  have  occupied 
half  a  dozen  different  homesteads  on  pre-emption 
claims  in  succession,  turned  up  a  little  ground, 
built  some  sort  of  house  which  never  was  finished, 
become  discouraged  or  disheartened  or  restless, 
sold  out  at  a  loss  or  abandoned  their  claims,  put 
their  portable  property  in  a  wagon  or  boat  and 
started  in  search  of  some  new  country.  Their 
impulse  seems  to  be  exactly  that  of  the  small 
boy  who  is  out  fishing.  He  always  seems  to 
think  the  fish  will  bite  better  a  little  further  on, 
either  up  or  down  the  stream,  it  does  not  matter 
which,  and  he  rambles  from  one  to  the  other  be- 
cause rambling  is  a  great  deal  easier  work  than 
fishing.  The  unsurveyed  territory  of  the  United 
States  is  still  enormous.  Between  the  city  of 
New  York  and  the  Ohio  river  there  are  still  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  acres  of  good  land  which 
never  echoed  the  sound  of  the  lumberman's  axe 
nor  heard  the  ploughman's  whistle  or  oath. 


ANNEXATION.  383 

Several  years  ago  the  president  of  a  prominent 
railway  corporation,  a  trunk  line,  said  to  me  that 
there  were  hundreds  of  miles  of  his  company's 
land  which  never  contributed  in  any  way  to  the 
support  of  the  road.  It  produced  nothing,  and 
scarcely  anything  was  carried  over  the  road  to  it. 
And  he  wanted  to  know  if  I  could  give  him  any 
possible  reason  why  immigrants  by  hundreds 
went  over  the  line  to  points  a  thousand  miles 
away  when  so  much  good  land  was  awaiting  till- 
age, and  was  several  hundred  miles  nearer  mar- 
kets than  the  country  to  which  they  were  going. 
I  could  not,  except  to  suggest  that  it  was  human 
nature  to  imagine  that  the  places  which  were  fur- 
therest  away  offered  the  greatest  advantages. 

Why,  even  in  the  State  of  New  York,  with  its 
five  or  six  million  inhabitants,  there  are  large 
counties,  and  not  in  the  Adirondack  region  either, 
of  which  not  more  than  half  the  good  land  is 
under  cultivation  to-day.  The  land  is  not  bad,  the 
distance  from  rail  communication  and  from  mar- 
kets is  not  great.  Everything  is  more  favorable 
to  the  settler  than  in  some  portions  of  the  West- 
ern States  that  are  filling  up  rapidly,  and  yet  the 
immigrant  passes  all  these  localities  and  goes 
further  away,  and  he  who  already  is  there  is 
often  dissatisfied  and  anxious  to  sell  out  and  go 
somewhere  apparently  for  no  other  purpose  ex- 
cept to  get  a  new  start.  The  hill  countries  of 
all  the  older  States  still  contain  immense  quanti- 


384         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'' 

ties  of  valuable  ground  which  might  be  made  to 
yield  more  profitable  crops  per  acre  than  any- 
body's wheat-land  in  the  most  favored  sections 
of  the  United  States.  The  ground  that  the  State 
of  Tennessee  some  years  ago  placed  upon  the 
market  at  six  cents  an  acre  so  as  to  have  it  in 
personal  instead  of  public  possession,  and  with 
the  hope  of  getting  a  little  something  out  of  it  in 
the  way  of  taxes,  is  as  good  as  many  of  the  more 
valuable  portions  of  the  Eastern  States.  The 
entire  table-land  of  the  mountain  range  that  sepa- 
rates the  Eastern  States  from  the  West  is  but 
sparsely  inhabited.  Not  much  of  it  can  be  util- 
ized for  large  planting  of  staple  crops,  but  all 
of  it  is  valuable  for  something  that  might  be 
turned  to  profit.  It  is  better  ground  than  the 
Switzers  live  well  on  in  their  native  country  and 
far  better  naturally  than  that  of  some  of  the 
more  prosperous  provinces  of  France.  On  the 
basis  of  the  population  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
which  State  certainly  is  not  overcrowded  in 
its  agricultural  districts,  this  nation  has  room 
for  all  people  who  will  be  born  in  it  or  who  by 
any  possibility  can  immigrate  to  it  for  two  or 
three  centuries  to  come. 

We  need  no  place  of  overflow  for  any  of  our 
population  that  is  not  criminal,  and  this  class  can 
be  trusted  to  find  its  own  outlets  and  places  of 
refuge  without  any  assistance  from  the  govern- 
ment or  the  people. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  INDIAN. 

IT  was  not  very  long  ago  that  the  Indian  was 
the  object  of  a  great  deal  of  discussion  and  alarm 
in  the  United  States. 

He  had  a  habit  of  breaking  ont  at  unexpected 
times  and  in  unexpected  places.  He  might  be 
quiet  in  winter  when  the  snow  was  deep  and  the 
reservation  warehouse  was  so  full  of  stores  there 
was  no  possibility  of  his  getting  hungry,  and 
consequently  angry.  When,  however,  the  spring 
sun  melted  away  the  snow  and  brought  the  grass 
to  the  surface,  so  that  it  was  cheaper  to  let  a  pony 
fatten  on  the  grass  than  to  kill  him  while  he  was 
lean,  the  Indian  picked  up  his  spirits  and  rifle — 
which  always  was  a  good  one — and  started  on  the 
warpath.  He  did  not  particularly  care  whom  he 
might  kill ;  but  if  there  were  no  other  Indian 
tribes  about,  he  was  not  going  home  without  a 
scalp,  even  if  he  had  to  kill  a  white  man.  The 
development  of  some  of  our  Territories  was  ar- 
rested for  months,  and  even  years,  by  some  In- 
dian wars  which  began  upon  very  slight  pretext, 
and  which  our  army,  contemptible  in  numbers, 

25  385 


386  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

was  unable  to  suppress  promptly;  and  the 
savages  gained  confidence  from  the  knowledge, 
which  they  were  not  compelled  to  ignore,  that 
we  were  not  a  fighting  nation. 

Hither  through  better  soldiers  or  less  dis- 
honest agents,  there  has  been  a  change  in  late 
years.  The  Indian  has  not  been  on  the  warpath 
in  a  long  time,  and  some  of  the  exciting  accounts 
of  Indian  raids  in  the  West  amount  only  to  this — 
that  a  body  of  men  have  left  their  reservation 
against  the  advice  of  their  associates,  and  started 
on  a  stealing  and  murdering  tour  just  far  enough 
ahead  of  the  military  force  to  be  able  to  do  a 
great  deal  of  harm  in  a  short  time. 

At  the  same  time,  however,  the  idea  has  been 
creeping  to  the  surface  that  the  Indian  might 
possibly  be  regarded  as  a  human  being  and  as 
amenable  to  the  ordinary  laws  and  customs  of 
civilization. 

All  of  us  have  heard  the  old  brutal  remark, 
attributed  to  General  Sheridan  and  several  other 
army  officers,  that  the  only  good  Indian  is  a 
dead  one.  But  this  is  a  base  and  cruel  slander. 
There  are  a  great  many  good  Indians,  and  every 
honest  Indian  agent  as  well  as  every  military 
officer  who  has  much  to  do  with  the  savage  tribes 
knows  that  in  each  reservation  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  men,  rude  though  they  may  be,  who  are 
of  considerable  character  and  large  self-control, 
and  whose  principal  faults  may  be  charged  to 


THE   INDIAN.  387 

the  negligence  of  the  government,  which  has 
regarded  the  red  man  as  its  special  ward. 

The  Indian  has  brains.  No  one  is  quicker  to 
admit  this  than  the  army  officer  who  has  had 
occasion  to  fight  the  Indian.  General  Custer 
was  a  good  soldier  and  an  experienced  Indian 
fighter,  but  Chief  Gall  was  a  better  one.  The 
defeat  of  Custer  is  usually  attributed  to  Sitting 
Bull,  but  that  old  ruffian  simply  did  out-and- 
out  fighting ;  the  brains  of  the  conflict — all  the 
strategy  and  all  the  tactics — were  supplied  by  an 
Indian  named  Gall,  who  still  lives,  and  for  whose 
military  ability  every  officer  in  our  army  has  a 
profound  respect,  not  unmixed  with  fear. 

The  flowery  and  elaborate  speeches  which  dif- 
ferent representatives  of  savage  tribes  have  made 
to  the  Great  Father  at  Washington,  through 
their  interpreters,  may  seem  to  have  a  good  deal 
of  nonsense  in  them,  but  the  Indian  Bureau 
knows  that  they  also  contain  a  great  deal  of  ad- 
mirable diplomacy.  It  may  be  because  the  In- 
dian has  very  little  to  think  of  and  can  give  his 
whole  mind  to  the  subject  under  consideration ; 
but  whatever  the  reason,  the  fact  is  assured  that 
in  pow-wows  between  representatives  of  our  In- 
dian Bureau  and  some  of  the  tribes  in  the  Far 
West  the  preponderance  of  brains  has  not  always 
been  on  the  side  of  the  white  man. 

Another  unexpected  development  of  the  In- 
dian question  is,  that  the  Indian  will  work. 


388        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

This  may  seem  a  wild  statement  in  view  of  what 
a  number  of  travellers  and  military  officers  have 
seen  on  reservations  in  the  Far  West  and  at 
railway  stations  on  the  slender  line  which  con- 
nects the  civilization  of  the  West  with  that  of 
the  Rocky  mountains  and  the  Pacific  slope.  But 
fortunately  there  are  a  number  of  witnesses  to 
substantiate  it;  for  instance,  the  Apaches  are 
currently  supposed  to  be  the  most  irreclaimable 
tribe  of  wild  men  within  our  nation's  borders. 
It  will  not  be  hard  to  recall  the  difficulties 
which  General  Crook  experienced  in  following, 
defeating  and  recalling  Geronimo's  famous  gang 
of  Apaches  a  few  years  ago,  when  they  were 
followed  to  a  mountain  fastness  in  Mexico.  Yet 
when  some  of  the  demons  who  had  murdered, 
ravished  and  burned  everything  in  their  path 
were  finally  brought  back  to  the  reservation  and 
taught  that  by  tilling  the  soil  they  could  earn 
some  money,  or  at  least  the  equivalent  of 
money,  they  worked  harder  than  any  American 
farmer  whose  achievements  had  ever  been  re- 
corded. These  so-called  lazy  devils  supplied  a 
military  post  with  hundreds  of  tons  of  hay, 
every  particle  of  which  was  cut  by  hand  with 
such  knives  as  the  savages  happened  to  have: 
they  had  no  other  tools  with  which  to  work. 
They  also  supplied  the  post  with  vegetables  of 
various  kinds,  beside  keeping  themselves  well 
fed  with  products  of  the  soil  which  were  results 


TH£   INDIAN;  389 

of  tlielr  own  labor.  Farms  managed  by  Indians 
are  not  at  all  uncommon  in  the  West.  It  was 
the  eviction,  or  the  fear  of  eviction  of  an  old 
Indian  woman  from  her  farm,  that  led  to  the 
murder  of  Indian  Agent  Meeker  in  Colorado. 
An  Indian  named  Ouray  was  for  a  long  time 
one  of  the  most  successful  and  respected  farmers 
in  Colorado.  Ouray  not  only  managed  his  own 
business  well,  but  kept  in  order  all  the  Indians 
in  his  vicinity.  His  methods  were  somewhat 
rude  to  be  sure,  but  they  always  were  effective, 
and  no  army  officer  of  his  acquaintance  hesitated 
to  trust  him  as  implicitly  as  he  would  trust  the 
Secretary  of  War  for  the  time  being.  An  In- 
dian at  present  is  one  of  the  land  barons  of  the 
West,  and  has  held  his  little  estate  near  the 
centre  of  a  large  and  nourishing  town  in  spite 
of  all  temptations  and  machinations  of  rum- 
sellers,  traders,  lawyers  and  other  scoundrels 
that  have  endeavored  to  swindle  him  out  of  his 
own. 

But  it  isn't  necessary  to  go  West  to  find  out 
whether  the  Indian  will  work.  One  needs  only 
to  go  down  to  Hampton,  Virginia,  where  the 
government  is  supporting  a  lot  of  young  Indians 
in  the  Normal  school  conducted  by  General 
Armstrong.  I  had  heard  so  much  about  the 
unwonted  spectacle  of  Indians,  clothed  and  in 
their  right  minds,  with  clean  faces  and  hands, 
studying  books  and  using  tools  and  behaving 


390        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

themselves  like  human  beings — that  a  little 
while  ago  I  went  down  to  Hampton  myself 
and  went  through  the  schools.  First,  I  asked 
General  Armstrong  whether  the  Indian  would 
work. 

"  Will  he  work  ?  "  said  the  General,  with  a 
merry  twinkle  of  his  eye.  "Well  now,  you  roam 
about  here  yourself  all  day ;  I  presume  you 
know  a  red  man  from  a  black  one  when  you  see 
him ;  and  you  will  have  the  question  answered 
to  your  entire  satisfaction." 

I  did,  and  was  convinced.  I  saw  Indians  out- 
of-doors  working  the  soil,  and  Indians  indoors,  in 
the  shops,  handling  tools  as  skilfully  as  the 
average  white  man.  I  saw  houses  inhabited  by 
picked  Indian  families — young  people  with  chil- 
dren, and  the  "  housekeeping  " — one  of  the  most 
comprehensive  words  in  the  world — was  so 
thorough  in  all  visible  respects  that  either 
family  seemed  fit  to  teach  domestic  economy  and 
neatness  in  many  Northern  villages  I  have  seen. 
I  saw  four  Indians  in  a  class-room,  at  four  sepa- 
rate blackboards,  draw,  inside  of  three  minutes 
by  the  clock,  four  quite  accurate  maps  of  North 
America,  putting  the  principal  lakes  and  rivers 
in  their  proper  places.  Several  prominent  Amer- 
icans (white)  were  with  me  at  the  time,  and  each 
admitted,  for  himself,  that  he  could  not  have 
done  as  well  to  save  his  life ;  yet  one  was  one  of 
those  railroad  monopolists  who  want  to  own  the 


THE    INDIAN.  391 

earth,  and*  are  supposed  to  carry  at  least  their 
own  section  of  it  in  their  mind's  eye. 

From  General  Armstrong  himself  I  got  the 
following  brief  statement  of  the  Indian  situation, 
and  I  have  been  unable  to  find  any  one  in  author- 
ity who  is  able  to  contradict  any  part  of  it. 

"  There  are  now  in  this  country  (exclusive  of 
the  Alaskans)  some  246,000  Indians,  of  whom 
64,000  belong  to  the  so-called  civilized  tribes,  the 
Choctaws,  Cherokees,  Creeks  and  Chickasaws. 
These,  including  their  16,000  ex-slaves,  a  rapidly 
increasing  negro  element,  live,  in  the  main,  like 
white  men.  They,  however,  pay  no  taxes,  receiv- 
ing ample  revenues  from  their  interest  in  the  sales 
of  land  to  the  government,  but,  while  they  have 
schools  and  churches  and  an  organized  govern- 
ment of  their  own,  are  held  back  by  their  adhe- 
rence to  the  old  tribal  idea.  This  is  thoroughly 
anti-progressive,  and  the  savage  Indian  of  to- 
day, who,  taking  his  land  in  severalty,  comes 
under  the  same  law  as  his  white  neighbor,  will 
probably  in  twenty  years  be  well  in  advance  of 
his  Indian  Territory  brother,  who,  under  exist- 
ing conditions,  can  be  neither  one  thing  nor  the 
other. 

"The  principal  uncivilized  tribes  are  the  20,000 
Navajos  in  the  Southwest,  and  the  30,000  Sioux 
in  the  Northwest.  The  first  of  these  have 
nearly  doubled  in  ten  years,  own  1,000,000  sheep 
and  40,000  ponies,  are  wholly  independent  and 


392         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE."> 

self-supporting,  but  wild  and  nomadic ;  while  the 
Sioux,  who  are  but  just  holding  their  own,  are 
still  victims  to  the  ration  system.  In  spite, 
however,  of  this  demoralizing  influence,  they 
have  improved  remarkably  of  late,  chiefly  be- 
cause they  have  been  fortunate  in  their  agents. 
It  is  upon  the  agents  that  everything  depends, 
and  those  in  charge  of  the  Sioux  have  gradually 
decreased  the  food  supply,  thus  forcing  self- 
support  and  inducing  the  younger  men  to  scatter 
along  the  river  bottoms  where  there  is  wood  and 
water,  instead  of  huddling  in  hopeless  depend- 
ence about  the  agencies.  Along  the  banks  of 
the  Upper  Missouri  and  its  tributaries,  and  on 
the  Rose-bud  and  Pine  Ridge  Agencies,  the 
Sioux  have  generally  broken  from  the  hea- 
thenish village  life  and  taken  farms  up  of  from 
one  to  thirty  acres.  As  I  drove  last  fall  down  the 
west  bank  of  the  Missouri  river  I  saw  hundreds 
of  ihese  farms,  with  their  wire  fences,  log  huts 
with  the  supplementary  ti-pi,  stacks  of  grain 
and  hay,  and  everywhere  men  working  in  the 
fields,  nineteen  out  of  twenty  in  citizen's  cloth- 
ing. As  a  better  class  of  white  settlers  conies 
in,  a  better  feeling  comes  with  them,  and  the 
Indian  can  get  in  no  other  way  such  education 
as  he  receives  from  contact  with  these  people. 

"The  best  of  these  Sioux,  3,500  of  whom  are 
now  self-supporting,  illustrate  what  we  mean  by 
'progressive  Indians,'  and  what  has  been  done 


THE   INDIAN.  393 

for  them  can  be  done  for  all  Indians.  It  is  only 
a  question  of  time  and  work.  Between  the 
Sierra  Nevada  and  the  Rocky  Mountain  Ranges, 
and  in  Montana,  there  are  many  thousand 
Indians  whose  condition  is  not  encouraging, 
chiefly  for  lack  of  adequate  effort  in  their  behalf; 
while  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  on  the 
Pacific  coast  who,  under  the  influence  of  good 
agents  and  good  conditions,  are  doing  well. 
On  farming  lands  Indians  improve  much  faster 
than  in  a  grazing  country. 

"  Government  paid  last  year  $1,050,000  for  beef 
for  reservation  Indians,  and  $1,200,000  for  their 
education,  and  -  only  twelve  thousand  children 
are  at  school  out  of  the  total  of  forty  thousand 
who  are  of  an  age  to  receive  education.  More 
education  and  less  beef  is  the  need. 

aAn  experience  of  eleven  years  with  Indian 
students  at  Hampton,  together  with  careful  study 
of  reservation  life,  has  convinced  me  that  In- 
dians are  alive  to  progressive  influences.  They 
are  intelligent  and  clear  thinkers,  quick  at 
technical  work  in  trades  shops,  unused  to  steady 
application  but  willing  to  take  hold.  They  do 
not  learn  English  easily,  and  are  shy  of  speak- 
ing it,  while  they  have  no  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  time,  and  cannot  endure  prolonged 
effort ;  this  last  being  a  result  of  their  lack  of 
physical  vigor,  which  I  believe  to  be  their  chief 
disadvantage.  In  my  dealings  with  them  I  have 


394  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

treated  them  as  men  and  have  found  them 
manly,  frank,  resentful,  but  not  revengeful; 
with  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  ready  to  take  pun- 
ishment for  wrong  doing,  and  to  speak  the  truth 
to  their  own  hurt. 

"  Of  247  sent  home  from  the  Hampton  school, 
three-fourths  have  done  from  fairly  to  very  well. 
At  least  one-third  are  doing  excellently.  There 
must  always  be  a  certain  percentage  of  poor 
material,  and  there  is  a  curious  fickleness  in  the 
average  Indian;  but  our  students  are  always 
surprising  us  by  doing  better  than  we  expect, 
and  this  is  especially  the  case  with  the  girls,  for 
whom  often  we  hardly  dare  to  hope.  Over  one- 
half  of  our  returned  Indians  have  had  temporary 
relapses,  but  there  are  few  who  do  not  recover 
themselves.  A  majority  are  working  for  their 
living  as  teachers,  mechanics,  farmers,  teamsters, 
clerks,  etc. 

"The  need  of  the  Indian  is  good  agents, 
teachers,  and  farm  instructors.  They  are  born 
stock-raisers  and  their  lands  are  the  best  cattle 
ranges  in  the  country.  With  the  right  men  in 
charge  they  could  in  ten  years  raise  such  a  pro- 
portion of  their  own  beef  as  to  reduce  the  beef 
issue  by  one-half. 

"  In  their  way  stands  a  short-sighted  economy, 
and  a  service  so  organized  that  it  changes  with 
every  change  of  party.  The  lines  of  work  for 
the  Indian  are  indicated  with  sufficient  clearness ; 


THK   INDIAN.  395 

the  one  thing  now  essential  is  intelligent  co- 
operation of  his  friends. 

"The  saying  that  '  there  is  no  good  Indian  but 
a  dead  one'  is  a  cruel  falsehood  and  has  done 
great  harm.  They  are  a  good  deal  like  other 
people,  and  with  a  fair  chance  do  well." 

That  the  Indian  will  work  and  that  he  also 
will  learn  was  first  demonstrated — officially — by 
Captain  Pratt,  of  the  regular  army,  who  now  is 
busily  engaged  in  solving  individual  Indian 
problems  at  his  noble  school  at  Carlisle,  Pa. 
The  change  in  the  government's  policy  toward 
the  redskins  is  attributed,  with  good  reason,  to 
Captain  Pratt's  endeavors.  Says  Senator  Dawes, 
who  labored  so  hard  for  the  bill  enabling  Indians 
to  take  farms  instead  of  living  in  barbarous  com- 
munism on  reservations : 

"  The  division  line  between  the  present  policy 
and  the  past  is  drawn  here ;  in  the  past  the  gov- 
ernment tried,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  to  rid  itself 
of  the  Indian.  The  present  policy  is  to  make 
something  of  him.  That  policy  had  its  origin 
almost  in  an  accident.  Eight  or  nine  years  ago 
the  government  sent  Captain  Pratt  with  warriors, 
covered  with  the  blood  of  a  merciless  war,  from 
the  Indian  Territory  down  to  Florida ;  and  Cap- 
tain Pratt,  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty,  under- 
took to  relieve  himself  of  the  labor  of  keeping 
these  warriors  in  idleness,  no  matter  if  the  work 
was  of  no  service  to  anybody  if  it  would  keep 


396        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THKK." 

them  out  of  idleness.  With  this  end  in  view  he 
got  permission  to  let  them  pick  stones  out  of  the 
streets.  Then  he  enlisted  ladies  to  teach  them 
to  read.  Out  of  that  experiment  of  Captain 
Pratt's  has  come  all  the  rest.  Behold  what  a 
great  fire  a  little  matter  has  kindled !  " 

Senator  Dawes  further  says  the  following  per- 
tinent words  on  the  Indian  question ;  no  Ameri- 
can can  fail  to  realize  the  force  of  his  remarks: 

"  If  St.  Paul  was  here  and  had  250,000  In- 
dians on  his  hands,  whom  the  United  States  had 
sought  for  one  hundred  years  to  rob  of  every 
means  of  obtaining  a  livelihood,  and  had  helped 
bring  up  in  ignorance,  he  never  would  have  said 
to  them,  '  He  that  will  not  work,  shall  not  eat.' 
You  did  not  say  that  to  the  poor  black  man ; 
you  did  not  say  that  to  the  little  children  whom 
you  sent  by  contribution  out  into  the  country  for 
fresh  air,  and  you  ought  not  to  say  it  to  this 
poor,  helpless  race,  helpless  in  their  ignorance, 
and  ignorant  because  we  have  fostered  their  ig- 
norance. We  have  appropriated  more  money  to 
keep  them  in  absolute  darkness,  and  heathenism, 
and  idleness,  than  would  have  been  required  to 
send  every  one  of  them  to  college,  and  now  we 
propose  to  turn  them  out.  We  did  not  relieve 
ourselves  of  the  responsibility  by  that  indiffer- 
ence ;  we  have  got  to  take  them  by  the  hand  like 
little  children  and  bring  them  up  out  of  this 
ignorance,  for  they  multiply  upon  our  hands, 


INDIAN.  397 

and  their  heritage  is  being  wrenched  away  from 
them,  and  good  men  as  well  as  bad  are  devising 
means  to  take  it  away. 

'*  What  is  to  become  of  them  then  ?  Have 
we  done  our  duty  to  this  people  when  we  have 
said  to  them  :  *  We  will  scatter  you  and  let  you 
become  isolated  and  vagabonds  on  the  earth,  and 
then  we  will  apply  to  you  the  philosophic  com- 
mand, "  Go,  take  care  of  yourselves ;  we  have 
every  dollar  of  your  possessions,  every  acre  of 
your  heritage ;  we  have  killed  more  of  your  fel- 
lows than  there  are  of  you  left ;  we  have  burnt 
your  little  homes,  and  now  we  have  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  time  to  take  away  from 
you  the  last  foot  of  ground  upon  which  you  can 
rest,  and  we  shall  have  done  our  duty  when  we 
command  you  to  take  care  of  yourselves  ? " 
That  is  not  the  way  I  read  it ;  I  know  how  sin- 
cere and  honest,  and  probably  as  near  right 
everybody  else  is,  but  I  am  only  telling  how  I 
feel.  I  feel  just  this  :  that  every  dollar  of  money, 
and  every  hour  of  effort  that  can  be  applied  to 
each  individual  Indian,  day  and  night,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  with  patience  and  persever- 
ance, with  kindness  and  with  charity,  is  not 
only  due  him  in  atonement  for  what  we  have 
inflicted  upon  him  in  the  past,  but  is  our  own 
obligation  towards  him  in  order  that  we  may  not 
have  him  a  vagabond  and  a  pauper,  without 
home  or  occupation  among  us  in  this  laud. 


398        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEK.' 

One  or  the  other  is  the  alternative ;  he  is  to  be 
a  vagabond  about  our  streets,  begging  from  door 
to  door,  and  plundering  our  citizens,  or  he  is  to 
be  taken  up  and  made  a  man  among  us  ;  a  citi- 
zen of  this  great  republic,  absorbed  into  the  body 
politic  and  made  a  useful  and  influential  citizen." 

President  Cleveland  voiced  the  opinion  of  all 
thoughtful  and  intelligent  citizens  when  he  wrote 
that  "  the  conscience  of  the  people  demands  that 
the  Indians  within  our  boundaries  be  fairly  and 
honestly  treated  as  wards  of  the  government, 
and  their  education  and  civilization  promoted 
with  view  to  ultimate  citizenship" 

With  a  chance  to  work,  the  Indian  needs  also 
the  chance  to  learn,  and  this  he  is  getting  more 
and  more.  Whether  he  will  learn  is  a  question 
no  longer  open  to  doubt.  General  Armstrong's 
testimony  is  given  above.  Captain  Pratt  says 
"  scarcely  a  student  but  is  able  to  take  care  of 
himself  or  herself  among  civilized  people  at  the 
end  of  their  five  years'  course."  Bishop  Hare, 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  who  has  been  doing 
splendid  work  among  the  Indians  for  many 
years,  gives  unwearying  attention  to  schools  on 
the  reservations,  but  says,  "I  cannot  shut  my  eyes 
to  the  incalculable  service  which  well-conducted 
Eastern  boarding-schools  have  done  the  Indians." 

When  we  shall  have  for  a  few  years  treated 
the  Indian  like  a  human  being,  there  will  be  no 
"  Indian  question  "  to  discuss. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  PRESS. 

THE  editor  is  the  great  American  school- 
master. None  other  is  worthy  to  be  compared 
with  him. 

He  is  about  as  numerous  as  all  other  teachers 
combined.  His  lessons  are  given  more  fre- 
quently, they  last  longer  and  they  cost  less  than 
any  others. 

To  him  forty-nine  students  in  every  fifty  are  in- 
debted for  the  only  post-graduate  course  they  ever 
receive.  Many  others  would  have  no  education 
at  all  if  it  were  not  for  him. 

He  does  not  always  know  his  business  so  well 
that  he  could  not  know  it  better,  but  whatever  he 
does  know  he  imparts  steadily,  as  well  as  some 
that  he  does  not  honor. 

He  is  the  only  influence  upon  whom  the  pub- 
lic can  absolutely  depend  to  right  any  wrong 
which  is  being  endured  in  spite  of  the  efforts  and 
oaths  of  legislators.  When  law  is  lazy  and  legis- 
lators are  venal  it  is  the  editor,  and  the  editor  only, 
who  comes  to  the  relief  of  the  public.  The  pub- 
lic will  not  do  this  for  itself.  It  seems  to  con« 

399 


400  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

sider  its  duty  done  when  it  casts  its  ballot.  More 
than  half  a  century  ago,  when  editors  were  not 
supposed  to  think  their  souls  their  own,  the  first 
Napoleon  said,  "  Four  hostile  newspapers  are 
more  to  be  feared  than  a  thousand  bayonets." 
Napoleon  certainly  knew  the  value  of  bayonets. 

The  newspaper  is  the  universal  tribunal.  It 
is  an  open  court  and  there  is  justice  of  a  sort  for 
every  one  there  at  a  trifling  cost,  one  cent,  two 
or  three,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  editor  is  the 
lawyer  to  whom  the  poor  man  must  of  necessity 
come.  His  court  is  one  of  equity,  and  it  is  to 
equity  courts  after  all  that  all  of  us  are  inclined 
to  resort  when  we  insist  upon  a  final  decision. 

He  is  the  people's  advocate.  Before  a  law  can 
be  suggested  in  legislature  or  Congress  to  undo 
.a  wrong  or  strengthen  a  right,  the  editor  has  al- 
ready suggested  it,  debated  both  sides  of  it  and 
rendered  a  decision,  frequently  a  dozen  or  twenty 
decisions,  which  the  public  are  inclined  to  admit 
or  regard  as  accurate.  He  sometimes  gets  hold 
of  a  subject  wrong  end  first,  but  he  will  submit  to 
correction  and  improvement  quicker  than  any 
judge  or  jury  on  record.  He  may  not  always 
admit  that  he  has  changed  his  mind,  or  that  he 
turned  over,  or  that  he  has  turned  his  coat,  but 
the  change  is  there  all  the  same,  to  any  one  who 
will  read  his  paper. 

He  is  the  only  biographer  and  historian  which 
the  mass  of  the  people  can  read.  And  he  gives 


THE  PRESS.  401 

more  information  for  a  given  amount  of  money 
than  the  cheapest  circulating  library  in  the  world. 

The  editor  is  also  invaluable  as  a  social 
barometer.  As  Thackeray  once  said,  '  The 
newspaper  is  typical  of  the  community  in  which 
it  is  encouraged  and  circulated ;  it  tells  its  char- 
acter as  well  as  its  condition."  This  is  awfully 
severe  upon  some  communities,  and  upon  the 
readers  of  certain  papers,  but  it  is  none  the  less 
true. 

Unselfish  thinkers,  who  are  concerned  chiefly 
for  the  good  of  the  community,  are  always  the 
men  who  esteem  the  editor  most  highly.  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  who  for  more  than  thirty  years  was 
abused  by  about  half  the  editors  of  the  land, 
said,  "  Let  me  make  the  newspapers,  and  I  care 
not  what  is  preached  in  the  pulpit  or  what  is 
enacted  in  Congress."  Many  years  before, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  one  of  the  founders  of  our 
government,  said,  "  Were  it  left  to  me  to  decide 
whether  we  should  have  a  government  without 
newspapers,  or  newspapers  without  a  government, 
I  should  prefer  the  latter." 

The  editor  has  improved  more  rapidly  in  the 
past  twenty-five  years  than  the  representative  of 
any  other  profession.  Theologians,  physicians 
and  lawyers  all  belong  to  schools  of  one  sort  or 
other,  but  of  late  years  there  has  come  up  a 
new  school  of  journalism  which  is  called  inde- 
pendent, and  it  has  become  so  popular  with 

26 


402  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

readers  of  newspapers  that  the  number  of  pro- 
fessors and  students  in  it  are  increasing  at  a  most 
gratifying  rate. 

James  Gordon  Bennett,  Jr.,  explains  one  dif- 
ference clearly  when  he  says :  '  There  is  one 
grand  distinction  between  journals — some  are 
newspapers,  some  are  organs.  An  organ  is  sim- 
ply a  daily  pamphlet  published  in  the  interest  of 
some  party,  or  persons,  or  some  agitation."  But 
the  organs  are  not  as  numerous  as  they  used  to 
be. 

Who  would  have  imagined  any  time  before  the 
late  civil  war  that  in  any  great  political  campaign 
preceding  a  general  election  in  this  country  there 
would  be  scores  and  almost  hundreds  of  indepen- 
dent newspapers.  The  time  was  when  a  news- 
paper could  not  exist  unless  it  were  a  party  or 
personal  organ.  But  the  newspaper  has  gradu- 
ally risen  from  being  a  mere  partisan  or  personal 
mouthpiece  to  being  the  mouthpiece  of  its  own 
proprietor.  At  the  present  day  no  properly 
qualified  journalist  need  attach  himself  to  either 
party  for  financial  reasons.  If  he  is  competent 
to  make  a  good  newspaper  he  is  quite  free  to  ex- 
press his  own  opinions  regardless  of  whom  he 
may  help  or  hurt,  and  the  position  is  so  delightful 
that  a  great  many  editors  rush  into  it  apparently 
for  the  mere  pleasure  of  expressing  their  own 
opinions.  During  the  last  general  election  the 
scarcity  of  strong  party  organs,  even  in  the  larg- 


THE  PRESS.  403 

est  cities  where  they  were  supposed  most  to  be 
needed,  was  a  matter  of  general  comment  among 
practical  politicians,  and  it  is  known  that  some 
newspapers  changed  hands  solely  for  the  purpose 
of  being  turned  into  party  organs  and  that  it  was 
frequently  so  difficult  to  obtain  control  of  existing 
journals  that  new  ones  had  to  be  started  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  supplying  their  respective  parties 
with  mouthpieces.  This  may  be  considered  a 
compliment  to  the  personal  interest  of  the  average 
journalist  or  to  his  personal  ability.  But,  which- 
ever it  is,  it  is  highly  creditable  to  the  profession, 
and  it  is  a  result  which  could  not  have  been 
hoped  for  twenty-five  years  ago. 

Now-a-days  every  journalist  of  actual  ability, 
no  matter  which  party  he  belongs  to,  wishes  that 
he  may  become  owner  of  an  independent  news- 
paper. It  is  impossible  for  him  not  to  see  that 
the  independent  newspaper  is  not  only  the  most 
quoted  and  the  most  talked  about,  but  the  most 
profitable.  The  paper  which  is  read  by  both 
parties  is  sure  of  more  subscribers,  purchasers 
and  advertisers  than  that  which  draws  all  its 
inspiration  from  the  platform  formed  by  a  single 
convention.  The  independent  editor  hears  him- 
self quoted  in  Congress  by  men  of  both  parties ; 
and  these  same  men  are  quite  likely  to  grumble 
and  swear  within  a  week  to  find  themselves  casti- 
gated by  the  same  men  whose  words  of  wisdom 
they  recently  availed  themselves  of. 


404  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

The  possibilities  of  the  press  for  good,  now 
that  independence  in  journalism  is  practicable 
and  also  a  business  temptation,  cannot  be  over- 
estimated. Public  opinion  can  be  created  more 
rapidly  by  daily  appeals  and  arguments  which 
the  newspaper  reader  can  quietly  look  over  by 
himself,  pausing  whenever  he  may  like  to  think 
over  what  he  has  read,  than  anything  that  can 
appear  in  campaign  speeches  or  magazine  essays 
or  books  by  the  most  noted  writers  and  special- 
ists. The  editor,  as  a  rule,  has  dropped  the  old 
stilted  form  of  the  essay,  and  puts  his  arguments 
in  the  ordinary  colloquial  form,  with  homely 
illustrations  and  forcible  applications  so  far  as 
words  go.  If  it  didn't  seem  like  complimenting 
him  too  highly  and  making  him  vain,  it  would 
not  be  unfair  to  say  that  his  method  is  that  in 
which  the  more  valuable  portion  of  the  four  gos- 
pels was  written.  He  has  learned  that  political 
power  is  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  the  learned 
classes,  but  that  all  portions  of  the  community 
feel  and  read  and  think ;  and  that,  as  every  man 
has  a  vote,  the  larger  the  audience  he  talks  to, 
the  simpler  and  clearer  must  be  his  arguments. 
Consequently  the  press  is  giving  us  a  class  of 
debaters  such  as  the  world  never  knew  before, 
and  such  as  no  parliamentary  body  in  the  world 
possesses  even  now  or  can  hope  to  possess  for 
some  time  to  come. 

With  increased  freedom  from  party  reins  and 


THE  PRESS.  405 

ties,  the  editor  is  continually  increasing  and  en- 
larging the  interests  to  which  he  addresses  him- 
self. There  is  scarcely  a  newspaper  in  the  United 
States  at  the  present  day  which  restricts  itself 
entirely  to  political  subjects.  Anything  in  the 
nature  of  human  interests,  social  economies, 
moral  reforms,  and  even  the  tastes  and  amuse- 
ments of  the  people  is  a  fair  subject  for  the 
editor.  He  is  not  only  a  teacher;  he  is  a 
preacher,  and  he  preaches  six  days  in  the  week 
instead  of  one.  In  fact,  he  frequently  extends 
his  ministrations  into  the  seventh  day  also,  to 
the  great  annoyance  of  preachers  who  occupy 
more  dignified  positions,  but  with  not  so  large  a 
congregation. 

The  press  hereafter  must  be  the  principal 
moral,  political  and  social  influence  of  the  coun- 
try. There  is  no  way  to  put  it  backward.  It  is 
being  more  and  more  trusted — more  and  more 
read — more  and  more  depended  upon  to  be  equal 
to  every  emergency ;  and,  to  do  it  justice,  it  sel- 
dom disappoints  expectations — a  statement  that 
cannot  be  made  with  any  shadow  of  truth  of  any 
class  of  statesmen,  except  the  very  best.  Years 
ago  Lamartine  was  laughed  at  as  a  dreamer 
when  he  said,  "  Newspapers  will  ultimately  en- 
gross all  literature ;  there  will  be  nothing  else 
published  but  newspapers,"  but  Lamartine's 
prophecy  is  being  rapidly  fulfilled.  The  news- 
paper is  invading  every  department  of  literature, 


406  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

and  giving   the  reader  the  best  at  the  lowest 
price. 

There  is  a  great  hubbub  once  in  a  while  in 
courts  and  among  lawyers  about  what  they  are 
pleased  to  style  trial  by  newspaper,  and  it  is 
atonishing  that  before  a  court  can  reach  any 
important  case,  the  conduct  of  the  case,  its 
merits  and  its  probable  conclusion  have  been  so 
well  foreshadowed  by  the  press  that  interest  in 
the  trial  itself  is  comparatively  slight.  So  gen- 
eral is  the  resort  to  newspapers  for  information 
and  opinion,  that  a  short  time  ago  when  one  of 
the  famous  boodle  aldermen  of  New  York  was 
called  up  for  trial,  it  was  impossible,  under  the 
jury  laws  of  the  State,  to  find  even  one  single 
competent  juror  in  a  city  the  population  of 
which  was  one  million  and  a  half.  Everybody 
had  formed  opinions,  and  the  opinions  generally 
agreed.  They  had  seen  the  testimony — seen  it 
discussed  from  all  sides  and  all  points — discussed 
so  clearly,  that  they  had  no  reasonable  doubt 
of  the  guilt  of  the  accused.  And  all  this  they 
saw  in  the  newspapers. 

It  begins  to  look  as  if  the  time  might  come 
when  lawyers,  courts,  jurors,  judges,  would  all 
be  supplanted  by  the  editor,  and  as  if  soon  after- 
ward teachers  and  preachers  also  might  feel  occa- 
sion to  shake  in  their  shoes.  There  is  no  danger 
in  such  an  event  of  the  editor  becoming  conceited. 
He  always  has  a  regulating  principle  close  at 


THE  PRESS.  407 

hand.  It  is  right  in  the  counting-room  at  the 
book-keeper's  desk.  The  public  can  change  its 
opinion  of  a  newspaper  as  quickly  as  it  can  of  a 
political  candidate ;  and  when  it  does,  the  editor 
knows  of  it  at  once  by  a  class  of  figures  that 
never  are  allowed  to  lie. 

Because  all  this  is  true — and  everybody  admits 
that  it  is — a  great  many  men  of  more  ambition 
than  brains  are  attempting  to  be  full-fledged 
editors  at  a  single  bound.  "  Fools  rush  in  where 
angels  fear  to  tread."  Angels,  who  have  un- 
equalled opportunities  of  knowing  the  true  in- 
wardness of  things,  would  think  twice,  or  oftener, 
before  attempting  to  be  editors,  without  first  going 
through  a  laborious  apprenticeship.  It  seems  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a  man  who  has  a 
lot  of  money  of  his  own,  or,  better  still,  some 
money  which  belongs  to  other  people,  to  start  a 
newspaper  and  air  his  own  opinions — which  con- 
sist principally  of  partialities  and  prejudices — 
but  the  end  is  sure  to  be  disastrous.  Many 
daily  papers  have  started  in  our  large  cities 
and  reached  a  large  temporary  circulation,  which 
afterward  disappeared  in  the  mists  of  oblivion 
and  left  nothing  .but  debts  behind.  A  successful 
newspaper  is  the  result  of  natural  growth  and 
accretion. 

Henry  Watterson,  editor  of  the  Louisville 
Courier-Journal,  says :  "  The  result  of  any 
newspaper  enterprise  depends  upon  the  char- 


408  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

acter  of  the  man  who  engages  in  it — his  capacity 
to  discern  correctly  and  to  adapt  his  paper  to  the 
wants  and  needs  of  the  audience  it  is  meant  to 


serve." 


Whitelaw  Reid,  editor  of  the  New  York 
Tribune,  and  now  Minister  to  France,  says : 
"  Every  great  newspaper  represents  an  intel- 
lectual, a  moral  and  a  material  growth — the  ac- 
cretion of  successive  efforts  from  year  to  year — 
until  it  nas  become  an  institution  and  a  power. 
It  is  the  voice  of  the  power  that  the  twenty  or 
thirty  years  of  honest  dealing  with  the  public 
and  just  discussion  of  current  questions  have 
given." 

Horace  Greeley,  the  founder  of  Mr.  Reid's 
paper,  said  truthfully  that  "  The  office  of  a 
newspaper  is  first  to  give  the  history  of  its  time, 
and  afterward  to  deduce  such  theories  or  truths 
from  it  as  shall  be  of  universal  application." 
Can  any  mere  peddler  of  news  and  scandals,  or 
any  man  whose  sole  gratification  is  a  desire  to 
see  his  own  impressions  in  print,  live  up  to  this 
standard  ? 

Conscience,  application  and  money,  as  well  as 
intellect,  is  necessary  to  the  successful  manage- 
ment of  a  newspaper.  George  W.  Childs,  editor 
of  the  Philadelphia  Ledger,  snatched  the  sympa- 
thies of  all  decent  members  of  the  editorial  fra- 
ternity when  he  said :  "  Few  persons  who  peruse 
the  morning  papers  think  of  the  amount  of  capi- 


THE  PRESS.  40rJ 

tal  invested,  the  labor  involved,  and  the  care  and 
anxiety  incident  to  the  preparation  of  the  sheet 
which  is  served  so  regularly."  Charles  A.  Dana, 
editor  of  the  New  York  Sun,  says:  "  The  legal 
responsibility  of  newspapers  is  a  reality,  but 
their  moral  responsibility  is  greater  and  more 
important."  B.  L.  Godkin,  editor  of  the  New 
York  Evening  Post,  says :  "  News  is  an  impal- 
pable thing — an  airy  abstraction ;  to  make  it  a 
merchantable  commodity,  somebody  has  to  col- 
lect it,  condense  it,  and  clothe  it  in  language, 
and  its  quality  depends  upon  the  character  of  the 
men  employed  in  doing  this." 

George  William  Curtis,  editor  of  Harper's 
Weekly,  admitting  the  tremendous  influence  of 
the  press,  voices  the  sentiment  of  successful 
editors  everywhere  when  he  says :  "  If  the  news- 
paper is  the  school  of  the  people,  and  if  upon 
popular  education  and  intelligence  the  success 
and  prosperity  of  popular  government  depends, 
there  is  no  function  in  society  which  requires 
more  conscience  as  well  as  ability." 

Evidently  newspaper  men  who  amount  to  any- 
thing realize  their  responsibilities.  The  press  is 
not  "  all  right,"  but  it  seems  as  far  from  wrong- 
as  conscience  and  common  sense  can  make  any 
earthly  institution. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  SCHOOL-ROOM 

THE  late  lamented  Sam  Weller  once  spoke  of 
a  schoolboy,  who,  having  learned  the  alphabet, 
wondered  whether  it  was  worth  going  through  so 
much  to  learn  so  little.  The  same  reflection  has 
come  to  millions  of  Americans  as  they  thought 
of  how  much  time  they  had  spent  in  schooling 
and  how  little  they  knew  when  they  got  out. 

There  are  parts  of  our  vast  country  where  the 
people  are  lucky  enough  to  have  teachers  who 
know  so  little  about  the  theories  of  teaching  that 
they  impart  to  their  pupils  more  information 
than  the  law  demands.  But  in  the  cities  and 
large  towns  where  teaching  has  been  elevated,  or 
more  properly  speaking,  reduced  to  a  science, 
where  the  most  money  is  spent  on  the  schools 
and  where  the  school  terms  are  longest,  the  prev- 
alence of  "  how  not  to  do  it "  is  simply  ap- 
palling. 

The  country  boy  who  goes  to  school  only  four 
or  five  months  in  the  year  knows  quite  as  much 
as  his  city  cousin  who  annually  has  nine  or  ten 
months  of  schooling.  What  does  the  city  pupil 

410 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  4  1  1 

get  for  the  double  outlay  of  time,  bad  air,  back- 
ache and  discipline  ? 

As  he  cannot  make  any  subsequent  use  of  his 
accumulation  of  bad  air  and  back-ache,  his  entire 
gain  over  the  country  boy  would  seem  to  be  in 
discipline.  What  does  this  discipline  do  for  him 
in  the  adult  life  for  which  school  life  is  a  prepa- 
ration ? 

Does  it  make  him  a  better  business  man  ?  No. 
If  it  does,  why  is  it  that  the  majority  of  business 
men  in  our  large  cities  are  from  the  rural  dis- 
tricts ?  A  few  months  ago  I  happened  to  be  a 
guest  at  a  dinner  party  at  which  more  than  a 
dozen  men  prominent  in  New  York  business  and 
professional  life  came  together.  A  question 
being  asked  about  a  social  custom  of  thirty  years 
before,  it  gradually  transpired  that  not  one  of  the 
party  had  been  born  or  brought  up  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  a  city  of  which  all  now  were  perma- 
nent citizens. 

I  have  told  this  story  to  prominent  citizens  of 
Chicago,  St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati,  and  in  return 
received  long  lists  of  the  great  men  of  those 
cities  who  came  from  the  country.  With  some 
fear  and  trembling  I  tried  the  same  story  in  Bos- 
ton at  a  large  public  dinner,  but  the  man  to  whom 
I  told  it — he  was  a  man  who  seemed  to  know 
everybody's  antecedents — replied  that  not  more 
than  one  in  ten  of  Boston's  Brahmans  or  live 
business  men  were  born  at  the  Hub. 


412  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

Congress  is  fairly  a  representative  body,  but  if 
you  will  look  at  the  book  which  gives  biographi- 
cal sketches  of  all  the  members,  you -will  be  as- 
tonished to  find  how  few  cities  and  large  towns 
are  represented  by  men  born  in  them.  Nearly 
all  the  members  were  born  and  brought  up  in 
the  country.  Occasionally  you  will  find  that 
some  representative  or  senator  was  born  in  Phila- 
delphia or  New  York,  but  if  you  look  at  the  head 
of  the  page  you  will  discover  that  he  is  represent- 
ing a  rural  district  of  some  State  other  than 
his  own. 

You  will  find  it  the  same  way  in  the  learned 
professions.  In  law,  medicine  and  theology,  art, 
literature  and  science,  the  men  who  are  most 
prominent  at  all  the  great  centres  of  education 
and  intelligence  date  back  to  some  farmhouse  and 
country  school.  Most  of  these  men  went  to 
college  in  the  course  of  time,  but  whenever  you 
find  one  of  them  and  talk  with  him  so  long  that 
he  feels  inclined  to  unbosom  himself  to  you,  you 
discover  that  the  amount  of  schooling  he  had 
at  his  birthplace  was  very  small.  As  most  of 
these  men  have  passed  the  period  of  their  boy- 
hood by  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  hear  them  tell  of  school  years  con- 
sisting of  only  three  or  four  months,  and  of  school- 
room exercises  where  the  number  of  text-books 
were  so  few  that  many  of  the  lessons  were  de- 


SCHOOL-ROOM.  413 

livered  orally  by  the  teacher,  and  boys  and  girls 
took  turns  with  one  another's  books. 

If  discipline,  school  discipline,  counts  for  any- 
thing, these  professions  should  be  full  of  city- 
bred  men.  But  they  are  not,  except  at  the  bot- 
tom— way  down  at  the  bottom.  City  schools 
graduate  an  immense  number  of  young  men  who 
enter  seminaries  and  especially  departments  of 
colleges,  to  gain  a  special  education,  but  somehow 
these  are  not  the  men  who  are  prominent  in  the 
new  blood  of  their  respective  professions. 

If  discipline,  so  called,  does  not  make  the  city- 
schooled  youth  superior  to  his  country  cousin, 
what  is  it  good  for  ?  Well,  it  is  good  to  keep 
the  school-room  in  order.  The  larger  the  school 
the  more  necessary  it  is  for  a  teacher  to  maintain 
order.  In  a  building  containing  two  or  three 
thousand  children,  as  many  school-buildings  in 
the  larger  cities  do,  rigid  discipline  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  this  end.  But,  to  come  back  to 
original  facts,  why  does  it  take  seven  or  eight 
years  to  impart  a  common,  a  very  common, 
school  course  which  any  bright  boy  or  girl  of 
fifteen  years  could  master  alone  and  unaided  in  a 
quarter  of  the  time  ? 

School  systems,  where  there  are  any,  seem 
designed  for  the  special  purpose  of  making  the 
school  a  machine  which  should  do  credit  to  the 
individuals  who  run  it.  This  would  be  excus- 
able with  an  actual  machine  made  of  wood  and 


414  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

metal,  but  children  are  not  tough  enough  to  be 
put  to  such  use.  Besides,  there  is  better  use  for 
them.  It  is  not  odd  that  teachers  should  look 
out  for  themselves  and  for  their  own  records  in 
the  management  of  schools.  If  they  don't  look 
out  for  Number  One  they  will  be  an  exception  to 
all  the  rest  of  humanity.  Nevertheless,  com- 
pared with  the  children,  the  teachers'  number 
one  as  about  one  to  fifty,  and  their  importance 
should  be  judged  from  this  standpoint  of  com- 
parison. 

School  systems  of  study  seem  based  on  the 
capacity  of  the  stupidest  pupils.  All  the  others 
must  crawl  because  the  stupid  ones  cannot 
walk. 

This  isn't  right.  If  armies  were  trained  in 
that  way  we  never  would  have  any  soldiers. 
Let  schools,  like  regiments,  have  their  awkward 
squads  to  be  specially  trained,  so  that  they  may 
catch  up  with  those  who  are  proficient. 

What  are  the  branches  in  which  the  common 
schools  give  elementary  instructions  ?  Spelling, 
reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  geography,  and 
grammar.  The  farther  from  the  large  city,  the 
surer  the  student  is  of  getting  any  instruction 
beyond  those  branches  during  the  first  six  or 
seven  years  of  a  common-school  course.  He  may 
be  qualified  by  home  reading  to  go  into  the  nat- 
ural sciences  or  into  mathematics  at  an  early 
age,  but  that  isn't  part  of  the  system.  It  seldom 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  415 

pleases  the  teacher  of  a  graded  school  to  be  told 
of  such  acquirements  of  a  new  pupil.  The 
school  exists  not  to  improve  the  intelligence  of 
the  pupil  from  the  standpoint  at  which  the 
teacher  finds  it,  but  to  give  him  such  instruction 
as  the  teacher  is  already  detailed  and  instructed 
by  law  to  give.  A  boy  may  forget  all  he  knows 
of  natural  science,  or  algebra,  or  geometry,  in  the 
many  years  in  which  he  is  drilled  in  elementary 
studies  leading  up  to  the  branches  which  he 
already  understands. 

In  the  country  districts  boys  are  often  fit  to 
pass  rigid  examinations  for  matriculation  at  col- 
lege at  the  age  of  fifteen  years.  But  the  boy 
who  does  not  begin  to  go  to  school  until  he  is 
eight  years  of  age  finds  himself  at  fifteen,  in  a 
city,  merely  fit  to  enter  a  high-school,  and  not  a 
very  high  school  either.  Some  of  the  most  noted 
men  in  our  country's  history  graduated  from 
college  at  sixteen  or  seventeen  years.  The  cur- 
riculum of  a  college  in  those  days  was  not  as 
high  as  now.  Nevertheless,  the  graduates  cer- 
tainly gave  a  very  good  account  of  themselves 
from  their  earliest  entrance  into  public  life.  One 
of  them  was  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  graduated 
at  seventeen,  and  who  elaborated  a  system  of 
financial  management  which  a  whole  century  of 
successive  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  have  not 
considered  themselves  competent  to  improve 
upon.  A  very  long  list  of  men  of  similar  prom- 


416  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

inence  might  be  given,  but  such  illustrations  are 
not  necessary.  Any  intelligent  man  who  has 
been  to  school  knows  that  a  great  deal  of  his 
class-roorn  time  has  been  entirely  at  his  own  dis- 
posal, for  the  lessons  were  easily  memorized ; 
and  therefore  his  hands  were  idle  and  Satan 
found  something  for  them  to  do.  The  worst 
boys  in  school  can  often  be  found  among  the 
scholars  who  stand  highest  in  the  classes,  and 
for  the  very  natural  reason  that  there  is  nothing 
to  occupy  their  minds  during  a  large  portion  of 
the  school  time. 

Seriously,  what  is  there  about  the  elementary 
branches,  as  taught  in  our  common  schools 
almost  anywhere,  that  should  consume  such  an 
immense  amount  of  time?  In  the  Southern 
States  a  number  of  the  despised  blacks,  children 
of  slaves  who  themselves  could  date  back  their 
ancestors  from  generations  of  slaves,  became 
quite  proficient  in  elementary  branches  during  a 
year  or  two,  lounging  about  military  camps  in 
the  capacity  of  servants.  Special  schools  were 
founded,  as  soon  as  the  war  ended,  by  missionary 
societies,  which  prepared  courses  of  study  which 
they  considered  within  the  comprehension  of  the 
Anglo-African  mind.  Of  course  there  were  a 
great  many  stupid  blacks ;  but,  while  some  of 
these  stupid  children  were  making  faces  at  text- 
books and  drawing  inartistic  pictures  on  slates, 
their  old  fathers  and  mothers  were  learning  from 


THH    SCHOOL-ROOM.  417 

the  same  children's  text-books  more  rapidly  than 
the  best  children  in  the  public  schools  of  the 
North  are  allowed  to  learn. 

Sir  John  Lubbock  complains  that  "A  thousand 
hours  in  the  most  precious  seed-time  of  life  of 
millions  of  children  spent  in  learning  that  i  must 
follow  e  in  conceive,  and  precede  it  in  believe ; 
that  two  e's  must,  no  one  knows  why,  come  to- 
gether in  proceed  and  exceed,  and  be  separated  in 
precede  and  accede ;  that  uncle  must  be  spelled 
with  a  c,  but  ankle  with  a  k, — while  lessons  in 
health  and  thrift,  sewing  and  cooking,  which 
should  make  the  life  of  the  poor  tolerable,  and 
elementary  singing  and  drawing  which  should 
make  it  pleasant,  and  push  out  lower  and  degrad- 
ing amusements,  are  in  many  cases  almost  vainly 
trying  to  gain  admission." 

Take  the  course  all  through,  and  what  is 
there  about  it  that  should  require  any  great  con- 
sumption of  time  ?  Reading  certainly  is  not 
hard  to  acquire.  Children  out  of  school  learn  it 
in  spite  of  any  efforts  to  hold  them  back.  Spell- 
ing is  learned  more  effectually  through  reading 
than  from  any  text-book.  Writing  requires  only 
a  model  of  which  copies  may  be  made,  for  there 
is  no  business  man  in  New  York  or  in  any  other 
large  city  who  writes  a  copy-book  hand.  If  he 
did,  he  would  be  considered  incompetent  for  what- 
ever position  he  may  occupy.  The  first  thing 
that  a  boy  must  learn  on  leaving  school  is  to  un- 


418         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

learn  his  writing-lessons.  Arithmetic  undoubt- 
edly requires  considerable  practice  to  make  the 
pupil  perfect  and  quick  in  computations,  but  as 
it  consists  entirely  of  applications  of  the  first 
four  rules,  why  is  it  that  so  much  time  is  Spent 
over  the  text-books  and  very  abstract  propositions 
and  problems  ?  Text-books  of  arithmetic  seem 
to  be  skilfully  designed  for  the  purpose  of  keep- 
ing the  child  from  practical  knowledge  on  the 
subject  as  long  as  possible.  Examples  that  are 
called  practical  are  given  in  many  of  these  books, 
but  only  after  a  large  amount  of  figuring,  the 
purpose  of  which  the  pupil  is  not  allowed  to 
clearly  understand.  A  man  whose  education  in 
figures  has  been  obtained  on  the  sidewalk  with  a 
piece  of  chalk  will  cypher  more  accurately  and 
quickly  any  problem  of  ordinary  nature  that  may 
be  given  him  than  his  own  son  or  daughter  who 
has  been  several  years  in  school,  because  he 
understands  the  relations  and  purposes  of  the 
factors,  which  never  seem  to  be  impressed  upon 
the  child. 

General  F.  A.  Walker,  once  superintendent 
of  the  census  and  now  president  of  the  Boston 
Institute  of  Technology,  says :  "  The  old-fash- 
ioned readiness  and  correctness  of  cyphering  have 
been  to  a  large  degree  sacrificed  by  the  methods 
which  it  is  now  proposed  to  reform.  A  false 
arithmetic  has  grown  up  and  has  largely  crowded 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  419 

out  of  place  that  true  arithmetic,  which  is  nothing 
but  the  art  of  numbers." 

Geography  is  so  largely  a  matter  of  memory 
of  the  eye  that  no  man  who  was  denied  the 
privilege  of  studying  this  science  while  he  was  at 
school  ever  thinks  it  necessary  to  spend  a  great 
amount  of  time  over  it  afterward,  even  if  his 
business  requires  him  to  have  a  practical  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject.  It  is  simply  a  question  of 
sight  and  of  memory,  just  as  is  the  case  with 
knowledge  of  localities  which  he  may  visit  either 
to  a  great  or  small  extent,  yet  geography  in  the 
public  schools  is  divided  into  two,  three,  and 
sometimes  five  different  books,  by  the  use  of 
which  the  pupil  goes  again  and  again  over  the 
same  lessons,  obtaining  in  the  end  no  more  in- 
formation than  that  he  would  get  by  a  few  days' 
deliberate  study  of  an  atlas  or  a  set  of  maps. 

Prof.  Geikie,  a  recognized  authority  on  this 
subject,  says :  "  Every  question  of  geography 
should  be  one  which  requires  for  its  answer  that 
the  children  have  actually  seen  something  with 
their  own  eyes  and  taken  note  of  it."  This  is 
reasonable  ;  it  would  also  be  practicable  if  globes 
and  large  maps  were  in  the  class-rooms,  but  gen- 
erally they  are  conspicuous  only  by  their  absence. 

It  is  quite  true  that  grammar  must  occupy 
considerable  of  the  pupils'  time.  For  all  the 
persons  who  have  studied  it,  there  seem  very 
few  of  any  age  at  the  present  time  who  are  able 


420        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

to  apply  the  principles  of  this  science  in  such  a 
manner  that  they  habitually  write  and  speak 
correctly.  But  this  isn't  so  much  the  fault  of 
the  pupil  and  of  the  teacher  as  of  the  text- 
books from  which  the  science  shall  be  studied. 
Good  example,  from  which  adults  learn  grammar 
more  correctly  and  rapidly  than  in  any  other 
way,  seems  to  be  considered  too  good  for  children, 
so  they  are  given  text-books  with  definitions 
utterly  beyond  their  comprehension — definitions 
so  subdivided  that  there  is  nothing  which  the 
intelligent  teacher  so  dreads  as  a  few  intelligent 
questions  on  the  subject  from  a  pupil  on  the 
grammar-lesson  of  the  day.  I  have  seen  an  in- 
telligent man,  himself  a  college  graduate,  and  a 
public  speaker  of  high  reputation  and  elegant 
style,  labor  with  one  of  his  children  over  a  lesson 
in  grammar,  and  finally  give  up  in  despair  and 
toss  the  book  across  the  room.  If  a  man  of  such 
character  is  unable  to  understand  a  grammatical 
text-book,  what  can  be  expected  of  the  child  ? 

The  greater  the  scholar  or  teacher,  the  greater 
is  his  contempt  for  text-books  of  grammar.  Old 
Roger  Ascham,  tutor  to  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
England,  delights  in  saying  that  his  distin- 
guished pupil  "  never  yet  tooke  Greek  or  Latin 
Grammer  in  her  hande  after  the  first  declininge 
of  a  Noun  and  a  Verb."  A  more  celebrated 
teacher,  John  Ix>cke,  complained  that  "Our 
children  are  forced  to  stick  unreasonably  in 


THE  SCHOOL-ROOM.  421 

grammatical  flats  and  shallows."  Dr.  Park- 
hurst  said  recently :  "  The  way  for  a  boy  to  talk 
correctly  is  to  talk  subject  to  correction — not  to 
apply  himself  to  linguistic  anatomy,  surgery 
and  dissection.  I  studied  grammar  in  the  ordi- 
nary way  about  three  weeks — just  long  enough 
to  find  out  what  a  genius  some  people  can  show 
for  putting  asunder  what  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether. It  is  a  splendid  device  for  using  up  a 
boy's  time  and  souring  his  disposition." 

Well,  all  this  routine  is  being  imposed  upon 
the  children,  and  the  little  wretches  are  losing 
spirit  and  impulse  through  the  delay  to  which 
the  cleverer  ones  are  subjected  and  the  lack  of 
clearness  which  causes  the  stupider  ones  to 
despair.  Nothing  whatever  is  done  toward  train- 
ing the  senses  and  physical  intelligence  of  the 
child.  They  do  this  sort  of  thing  abroad,  but 
for  some  reason  Americans  are  not  allowed  to 
follow  the  foreigners'  example.  Apparently  our 
children  have  a  divine  call  to  whatever  handi- 
work may  fall  to  their  lot  thereafter  in  the  world, 
for  certainly  they  get  as  little  training  in  it  as 
the  twelve  apostles  had  in  theology  before  they 
were  called  to  preach  and  teach.  The  French 
or  German,  the  Swedish  child,  and  even  many 
a  Russian  child,  is  taught  to  use  his  hands 
and  his  eyes  and  all  his  senses  that  can  be 
applied  to  practical  affairs,  but  the  American 
child  gets  no  opportunity  of  that  sort,  except  in. 


422  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

the  few  schools  which  conform  more  or  less  to 
the  kindergarten  system.  We  have  a  few  tech- 
nical schools  in  large  cities,  but  they  are  re- 
garded as  means  to  finish  a  course  of  education 
instead  of  part  of  the  ordinary  elementary  in- 
struction. 

When  technical  education,  which  means  simply 
the  use  of  the  hands  and  eyes,  is  spoken  of  to 
members  of  Boards  of  Education  and  Superinten- 
dents of  common  school  systems  in  large  cities, 
the  result  is  generally  an  impatient  gesture  or 
word.  There  is  no  room  for  that  sort  of  thing, 
we  are  told;  beside,  it  is  a  mere  notion  of  theor- 
ists. The  general  run  of  children  are  not  equal 
to  it  and  would  be  more  troubled  than  benefited 
by  it. 

Well,  experience  is  more  valuable  than  argu- 
ment in  answering  assertions.  A  few  years  ago 
a  man  who  had  scarcely  ever  done  any  work  in 
the  school-room  brought  some  theories  on  the 
subject  of  technical  education  over  here  from 
Germany,  although  he  was  an  American.  He 
went  to  Philadelphia  and  started  a  little  class  for 
the  instruction  of  teachers.  The  majority  of 
common  school  teachers  sneered  at  his  theories, 
so  he  proposed  to  silence  all  further  opposition  by 
a  practical  test.  He  started  a  model  school  for 
the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  what  he  as- 
serted was  practicable.  He  did  not  select  the 
brighter  pupils  in  the  public  schools,  but  went 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  423 

deliberately  into  tlie  streets  and  picked  up  at  ran- 
dom a  lot  of  little  gutter-snipes  who  had  never 
been  to  school  at  all,  or  who,  if  they  had,  were 
persistent  truants  ever  since.  In  a  short  time 
people  saw — for  it  was  necessary  to  have  them 
see  in  order  to  make  them  believe  at  all — these 
ignorant  children  of  the  street  doing  better  tech- 
nical work  in  several  directions  than  could  be 
found  anywhere  else  in  the  city  except  in  estab- 
lishments paying  high  prices  for  artistic  labor. 
They  carved  wood,  they  modelled  in  clay, 
they  made  designs  on  paper,  they  stamped 
leather  and  brass  and  even  showed  some  capacity 
for  engraving  and  coloring  in  the  direction  of  the 
higher  arts. 

The  effect  of  this  display  should  have  been  to 
have  given  the  system  prominence  and  practical 
demonstration  in  the  public  schools,  but  it 
amounted  to  little  except  the  gathering  of  a  few 
wide-awake  teachers  who  wished  to  learn  to  teach 
as  the  theorist  had  been  teaching.  A  few  of 
those  who  took  the  course  went  into  public 
school  work  elsewhere  and  have  succeeded 
admirably  ever  since.  In  the  city  of  Elizabeth, 
New  Jersey,  any  child  who  wishes  can  now  re- 
ceive a  technical  education  under  the  direction  of 
the  common  school  authorities.  The  work  be- 
gan in  a  single  school  with  a  single  teacher.  It 
has  since  been  extended  to  all  the  public  schools 
of  the  city,  and  two  teachers  work  hard  from 


424  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

morning  until  night.  A  strange  development  of 
this  course  of  teaching  deserves  notice.  Eliza- 
beth is  a  city  containing  a  great  many  large 
manufacturing  establishments,  and  the  modest 
young  woman  who  had  charge  of  the  technical 
education  in  the  public  schools  was  amazed  one 
day  to  receive  a  written  request  from  a  number 
of  master  mechanics  in  different  establishments 
for  a  night  school  for  their  own  benefit,  for  which 
they  were  willing  to  pay  freely ;  and  some  of  them 
told  the  teacher  that  their  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject was  first  attracted  by  their  own  children  do- 
ing clearer  and  more  rapid  work  in  the  line  of 
design  than  they,  these  master  mechanics,  who 
had  been  in  the  business  all  their  lives,  had  ever 
yet  succeeded  in  doing.  So  for  months  there 
was  visible  the  astonishing  spectacle  of  a  lot  of 
middle-aged  men  being  taught  their  own  business 
by  a  young  woman  who  herself  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  their  business. 

The  helplessness  of  the  average  American 
teacher  when  the  subject  of  technical  education 
is  mentioned  was  shown  amusingly  a  few  years 
ago  when  one  of  the  several  superintendents  who 
have  general  charge  of  the  New  York  city  schools 
devised  a  system  of  teaching  from  what  he  called 
object  lessons.  He  prepared  a  manual  and  a  set 
of  charts  and  the  Board  of  Education  in  compli* 
%ment  to  him  purchased  a  great  many  and  placed 
them  in  the  class-rooms.  But  it  was  almost  in> 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  425 

possible  to  have  them  used  unless  the  superin- 
tendent himself  took  the  work  in  hand.  The 
teachers  didn't  understand  it.  They  said  they 
couldn't  get  the  hang  of  it.  The  truth  was  they 
had  never  had  any  education  of  the  same  kind 
themselves  and  the  matter  was  as  foreign  to  their 
intelligence  as  Hebrew  or  Sanscrit  would  have 
been.  But,  mark  the  difference ;  when  news  of 
this  system  penetrated  the  wilds  of  the  rowdy 
West,  demands  and  orders  for  the  material  to 
work  with  came  Hast  rapidly,  and  I  was  told -that 
a  single  State  in  the  new  West  made  more  use  of 
this  system  than  all  the  Eastern  and  Middle 
States  combined.  The  West  knows  what  it 
wants ;  the  teachers  are  closer  to  the  children 
than  in  the  East.  This  may  be  one  of  the  bless- 
ings, or  perhaps  penalties,  of  life  in  a  new 
country,  but,  whatever  it  may  be,  the  results 
seem  to  justify  a  wish  that  all  of  us  could  be 
transplanted  to  a  new  country,  for  at  least  a  little 
while,  from  the  older  centres  of  our  American 
civilization. 

General  Walker,  president  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology,  says  :  "  The  intro- 
duction of  shopwork  into  the  public  system  of 
education  cannot  fail  to  have  a  most  beneficial 
influence  in  promoting  a  respect  for  labor  and  in 
overcoming  the  false  and  pernicious  passion  of 
our  young  people  for  crowding  themselves  into 
overdone  and  underpaid  departments  where  they 


426  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

may  escape  manual  exertion."  Col.  Auchmuty, 
the  philanthropic  founder  of  New  York's  great 
"  Trades  School,"  says :  "  What  scientific  schools 
are  to  the  engineer  and  architect — what  the  law 
school  and  the  medical  school  are  to  the  lawyer 
and  the  physician,  or  what  the  business  college 
is  to  the  clerk — trade  schools  must  be  to  the 
future  mechanics."  President  Butler,  late  of 
Columbia  College's  faculty,  now  president  of  the 
Industrial  Association's  great  model  school,  says : 
"  Manual  training  does  not  claim  admittance  as 
a  favor ;  it  demands  it  as  a  right.  The  future 
course  of  study  will  not  be  a  Procrustean  struc- 
ture— absolutely  and  unqualifiedly  alike  for  all 
localities  and  for  all  schools  ;  but  it  will  have  in 
it  a  principle,  and  that  principle  will  be  founded 
on  a  scientific  basis — the  highest  duty  of  the 
educator  will  be  its  application  to  his  own  par- 
ticular needs  and  demands." 

Is  the  experience  of  practical  educators  like 
these  to  be  cast  aside  in  favor  of  the  antiquated 
theories  of  teaching  now  in  vogue  ? 

Any  one  who  wonders  why  country  boys  be- 
come prominent  city  men,  and  why  there  are 
about  as  many  Western  men  in  New  York  city 
in  business  as  there  are  men  from  the  East,  can 
find  out  by  looking  closely  to  the  difference  be- 
tween city  and  country  systems  of  education. 
If  a  country  village  is  too  small  to  have  a  high 
school,  it  is  nevertheless  generally  the  case  that 


THE    SCHOOL-ROOM.  427 

the  higher  branches  are  taught  to  a  large  extent 
in  the  commonest  of  schools.  College  graduates 
find  the  profession'  of  teaching  a  very  handy 
means  of  paying  their  expenses  while  looking 
about  the  country  and  seeing  where  to  begin  the 
practice  of  law  or  medicine,  or  perhaps  drop  into 
the  pulpit.  Boys  and  girls  of  twelve  or  fourteen 
years  may  be  found  studying  physiology,  algebra 
and  geometry,  natural  sciences  and  chemistry  in 
schools  all  over  the  new  West  at  a  time  when 
children  of  the  same  age  in  the  large  Eastern 
cities  are  slowly  wrestling  with  the  lessons  and 
elementary  text-books  of  geography  and  gram- 
mar and  arithmetic.  When  competitive  exami- 
nations for  West  Point  cadetships  are  held  in  the 
West  the  general  trouble  is  that  the  candidates 
are  too  young  to  enter  the  military  academy  even 
could  they  pass  the  necessary  examination  and 
succeed  in  winning  the  competitive  prize.  I  saw 
such  an  examination  myself  in  one  Western 
town,  which  was  narrowed  down  to  two  boys. 
These  youngsters,  the  ablest  of  all  the  appli- 
cants, were  aged  respectively  thirteen  and  four- 
teen years.  They  passed  rigid  examinations  in 
mathematics,  with  scarcely  a  mark  against  them. 
That  is  more  than  could  be  done  by  any  boys  of 
similar  age  in  the  public  schools  of  New  York 
and  Brooklyn  and  Philadelphia,  the  three  largest 
cities  in  the  Union. 

The  rapidity  with  which  children  pass  through 


428  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

text-books  in  the  newer  States  and  more  sparsely 
settled  districts  is  the  cause  of  the  great  number 
of  so-called  colleges  which  are  found  all  over  our 
country.  There  are  more  colleges  by  title  in  the 
United  States  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
beside.  Their  standards  are  never  those  of  the 
universities  of  Europe — seldom  of  Yale  or  Har- 
vard. But  they  are  higher  than  those  of  the 
ordinary  high  schools,  and  the  young  man  or 
young  woman  who  passes  through  them  has  a 
very  fair  general  education,  and  is  fitted  to  go  on 
by  private  reading  to  almost  any  extent.  In  the 
larger  cities  of  the  East  such  opportunities  are 
few.  There  is,  perhaps,  a  single  large  institu- 
tion in  each  city,  like  the  High  School  of  Phila- 
delphia or  the  Normal  College  of  New  York,  at 
which  girls  are  educated,  or  the  College  of  the 
City  of  New  York,  to  which  the  better  boys  are 
sent  for  a  full  college  course  if  they  desire  it. 
But  these  same  facilities  are  demanded  and  ob- 
tained in  the  newer  cities  at  a  rate  that  would 
astonish  the  Eastern  person  who  chose  to  look 
into  the  subject. 

The  most  pressing  need  of  our  common  school 
system  is  more  teachers.  With  more  teachers 
greater  personal  attention  could  be  paid  to  each 
pupil,  and  smaller  time  would  be  required  for 
the  ordinary  school  course.  In  the  cities  it  is 
the  rule  that  boys  and  girls  must  leave  school  at 
a  very  early  age  in  order  to  help  earn  a  living 


THE   SCHOOL-ROOM.  429 

for  their  respective  families.  The  majority  of 
them  are  children  of  parents  who  are  very  poor, 
who  have  to  work  terribly  hard  and  save  in  every 
possible  way  in  order  to  keep  their  families  from 
starvation.  Consequently  the  children  go  to 
work  as  soon  as  they  are  large  enough  to  be 
accepted  by  any  employer  at  any  sort  of  occupa- 
tion. Their  subsequent  opportunities  for  learn- 
ing anything  are  necessarily  limited.  They 
must  learn  by  general  reading  if  at  all,  except 
for  such  few  opportunities  as  are  granted  them 
by  night  schools,  a  beneficent  class  of  educa- 
tional institutions,  which  those  who  most  need 
them  are  least  able  to  attend,  for  how  much 
studying  can  a  boy  or  girl  do  after  nine  or  ten 
hours  of  work  in  a  counting-room  or  shop  or 
factory  ?  With  more  teachers  our  city  children 
could  obtain  a  fair  high  school  education  at  the 
age  of  fourteen,  and  be  better  able  to  make  their 
way  in  the  world  at  whatever  their  work  might  be. 
The  best  finishing  school  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  ever  been  able  to  avail  them- 
selves of  is  the  course  of  home  reading  which  one 
society  or  other  has  within  a  few  years  devised, 
and  which  some  of  them  are  conducting  with 
great  care  and  success.  Systems  of  reading  and 
consecutive  study  are  devised,  books  are  supplied, 
individuals  are  selected  to  receive  and  inspect  ex- 
amination papers  to  show  the  capacity  of  the 
students  and  to  give  suggestions  according  as 


430        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

the  students  may  seem  to  require,  and  in  this 
way  one  single  society  has  now  eighty  thousand 
students,  with  more  than  a  hundred  instructors 
and  inspectors.  This  system  might  be  definitely 
extended  at  very  small  expense  by  the  various 
States  as  part  of  the  local  system  of  education. 
Until  the  blunders  of  the  common  school 
system  are  modified  or  done  away  with,  it  is  as 
little  as  the  State  can  do  to  give  an  intelligent 
child  this  much  of  consolation  and  assistance 
for  the  time  that  it  has  been  compelled  to  lose 
by  incompetent  tuition  in  the  public  schools. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

RAILROADS. 

THE  railroad  problem  is  one  of  the  most  com- 
plicated and  vital  questions  of  the  day.  Nothing, 
perhaps,  is  so  typical  of  the  ingenuity,  skill  and 
colossal  power  of  our  modern  civilization  as  the 
railroad  train — a  solitary  man  holding  the  lever 
which  controls  this  tremendous  mass  of  wood 
and  metal,  with  its  freight  of  goods  and  passen- 
gers rushing  past  us  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a 
minute. 

The  growth  of  the  railroad  is  one  of  the  great- 
est marvels  of  this  wonderful  century.  England 
got  her  first  road  from  the  Romans  in  415  A.  D. 
To  move  the  Roman  armies  it  was  necessary  to 
have  the  "  Roman  Way,"  and  the  remains  of 
those  wonderful  works  still  excite  the  admira* 
tion  of  all  beholders.  The  dangers  and  delays 
of  roads  in  the  middle  ages,  and  even  in  the 
stage-coaching  days  of  our  fathers,  beset  as  they 
were  with  difficulties  and  terrorized  by  highway- 
men, all  seem  to  us  to  belong  to  some  remote 
past. 

It  is  a  new  tribute  to  the  genius  of  that  impe- 

431 


432  "  MY   COUNTRY,  *TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

rial  people  who  swayed  the  world  in  the  earlier 
ages  of  Christianity  that  even  now,  with  all  our 
facilities  of  modern  travel,  our  people  are  begin- 
ning to  realize  the  necessity  of  roadways  ap- 
proximating those  which  they  constructed.  The 
farmer  often  has  to  haul  the  products  of  his 
fields  many  miles  to  -reach  the  railway  station, 
and  the  time  and  the  effort  needed  to  get  his 
wheat  or  corn  over  tortuous  and  defective  road- 
ways entails  a  very  serious  loss.  In  many  parts 
of  the  country  the  roads  in  fact  are  so  impassa- 
ble in  certain  months  that  the  farmer  is  unable 
to  transport  his  grain  to  the  railway  at  a  time, 
perhaps,  when  the  markets  are  high,  and  is 
forced  to  hold  it  until  the  season  opens,  and  to 
dispose  of  it  at  a  much  lower  pice.  There  is  a 
general  awakening  of  public  sentiment  to  the 
necessity  for  improvement  in  this  direction,  and 
for  some  years  to  come  there  will  probably  be 
quite  as  much  effort  expended  in  the  bettering 
of  country  roads  as  in  the  further  improvement 
and  extension  of  our  already  colossal  railroad 
system. 

Until  the  opening  of  the  railway  era,  com- 
merce and  travel  followed  the  natural  lines  of 
transportation — the  water-ways.  There  were,  it 
is  true,  a  few  exceptional  instances  like  those  of 
the  ancient  caravan  routes  which  crossed  the 
lines  of  the  great  rivers  and  built  up  inland 
cities,  but  the  operation  of  natural  laws  in  time 


RAILROADS.  433 

prevailed,  and  these  cities  fell  into  ruins,  while 
others  sprang  up  along  the  coasts  and  water- 
ways. Even  after  the  introduction  of  railways, 
the  cost  of  transportation  thereby  was  so  heavy 
that  the  water-ways  still  commanded  the  general 
direction  of  commerce,  and  it  is  only  since  the 
wonderful  cheapening  of  railway  rates — due  to 
the  enormous  growth  of  the  traffic  and  the  intro- 
duction of  more  heavily  loaded  cars  and  other 
economies — that  the  iron  way  has  dominated  the 
water-way  and  subverted  what  had  been  one  of 
the  maxims  of  commercial  development  from  the 
earliest  times. 

At  the  present  time,  where  the  question  of 
time  is  not  important,  the  carriage  of  passengers 
and  goods  by  water  is  so  much  cheaper  than 
by  rail  as  to  survive  in  competition.  Where  the 
passenger's  time  is  of  value,  or  perishable  goods 
are  carried,  or  the  merchant  is  in  a  hurry  to  re- 
ceive his  consignment,  the  railway,  following 
virtually  the  shortest  distance  between  the  two 
points — piercing  mountains,  spanning  ravines 
and  crossing  the  rivers,  is,  of  course,  the  neces- 
sary means  of  communication.  Most  of  the  great 
cities  that  have  sprung  up  within  the  memory 
of  people  still  living,  like  those  of  old,  are  reared 
on  the  sea-coasts  or  the  shores  of  great  lakes,  or 
on  the  banks  of  navigable  streams,  the  facilities 
of  transportation  by  water  conspiring  to  create 
these  centres  of  activity  and  industry.  Where 

28 


434  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS    OF   THEE." 

a  number  of  railroad  lines  concentrate,  a  great 
city  may  spring  up — like  Indianapolis  ;  or  where 
great  manufacturing  facilities  exist,  as  in  the 
juxtaposition  of  the  coal,  ore  and  flux — as  at 
Birmingham,  Alabama.  But  these  are  compara- 
tively few  in  number,  and  have  not  such  limits 
of  expansion  as  cities  which  may  be  reached  by 
water.  Aside  from  their  commercial  disadvan- 
tages, the  inland  cities  present  difficult  prob- 
lems, among  the  most  important  being  that  of 
successful  sewage  and  sanitation. 

In  this  country,  indeed,  most  of  the  earlier 
railroads  were  projected  merely  to  connect  navi- 
gable streams  with  one  another,  or  with  the 
coast,  their  founders  evidently  regarding  rail 
transportation  as  an  auxiliary  of  the  natural 
ways,  and  not  as  a  great  rival  which  was  in  a 
very  few  years  to  dominate  them.  In  other  in- 
stances, railways  in  the  early  days  were  simply 
built  along  the  banks  of  the  rivers,  because  the 
people  found  that  when  the  latter  were  frozen  in 
the  winter,  they  needed  some  other  means  of 
transportation.  These  scattered  bits  of  road  here 
and  there  were,  in  after  years,  as  the  possibilities 
of  railroad  development  began  to  dawn  upon  the 
minds  of  far-seeing  men,  united  by  connecting 
links  and  reorganized  into  roads  of  much  greater 
length.  In  fact  some  of  the  most  difficult  feat- 
ures of  the  railroad  problem  of  the  present  day 
grew  out  of  the  failure  of  projectors  of  railroads 


RAILROADS.  435 

in  the  early  days  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the 
system  which  they  were  instituting.  France, 
Germany,  Belgium  and  other  European  cities 
have  had  no  serious  railway  problem.  The 
English  people,  however,  have  passed  through 
very  nearly  the  same  experience  as  ours,  and  we 
are  now  solving  the  same  questions  which  puz- 
zled their  heads  nearly  a  generation  ago. 

The  immunity  of  the  continental  nations  from 
many  difficult  railway  questions  arises  from  the 
fact  that  they  began  building  railroads  after 
England  and  our  own  country  had  undertaken 
them,  and  after  we  had  sufficiently  developed 
their  possibilities  to  show  the  absurdity  of  many 
of  the  ideas  that  prevailed  when  they  were  inau- 
gurated. It  was  supposed  that  the  first  com- 
panies chartered  would  build  a  railway  just  as 
they  would  build  a  highway,  and  that  the  iron 
way  would  be  open  to  competitive  traffic  by  indi- 
viduals or  combinations  of  individuals,  just  as 
the  ordinary  highway  was  open.  In  the  charter 
of  the  first  railway  company  which  built  a  line, 
the  Manchester  and  Liverpool  Railway,  and  in 
fact  in  all  the  charters  which  were  granted  in 
England  prior  to  1829,  and  the  charters  granted 
in  this  country  in  the  same  period,  this  idea  is 
clearly  expressed.  The  Ithaca  and  Owego  Rail- 
way, now  a  portion  of  the  great  New  York  Cen- 
tral trunk  line,  was  chartered  in  1828,  and  gne 
section  of  the  charter  contains  this  provision: 


436  UMY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

"All  persons  paying  the  toll  aforesaid  may,  with 
suitable  and  proper  carriages,  use  and  travel  upon 
the  said  railroad,  subject  to  such  rules  and  regu- 
lations as  the  said  corporators  are  authorized  to 
make  by  the  ninth  section  of  this  act." 

It  is  obvious  that  the  notion  entertained  by  the 
founders  of  this  railway  was  that  they  would  sim- 
ply own  a  turnpike  with  rails  upon  it,  and  would 
derive  their  revenue  from  the  tolls  charged  upon 
the  vehicles  that  should  be  rolled  over  it  by  indi- 
\aduals.  It  was  not  until  railway  building  had 
proceeded  for  about  a  dozen  years  that  it  became 
evident,  from  the  nature  of  the  power  employed 
and  the  higher  rate  of  speed — unforeseen  until 
then — that  might  be  attained,  that  the  railway 
company  must  monopolize  the  service  over  the 
road  they  built.  This  rendered  necessary  an  en- 
tire revolution  of  the  principles  upon  which  all 
future  charters  should  be  granted.  But  the  fun- 
damental mistake  was  made.  The  continental 
peoples  began  to  build  their  railways  after  this 
fact  was  discovered,  and  therefore  had  the  benefit 
of  their  predecessors'  mistakes,  and  adopted  pre- 
cautions which  have  relieved  them  of  many  awk- 
ward complications. 

Besides  this,  another  mistake  of  ignorance  was 
the  belief  that  railways  would  be  used  exclusively 
for  the  transportation  of  passengers,  and  it  was 
long  after  the  first  rails  had  been  laid  that  the 


RAILROADS.  437 

notion  that  "  light  goods  "  might  be  conveyed, 
dawned  upon  their  minds. 

Any  man  who  should  have  told  these  pioneers 
of  the  railway  world  that  the  United  States 
would  possess  in  the  year  1889  a  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  miles  of  railroad,  enough  to  belt 
the  world  seven  times  at  the  Equator,  would  have 
been  regarded  as  a  lunatic.  The  ownership  of 
this  vast  property  is  represented  by  stocks  and 
bonds  aggregating  $9,000,000,000.  They  receive 
yearly  from  the  public  for  carrying  passengers 
and  freights  the  sum  of  $1,000,000,000  and,  after 
paying  the  expenses  of  their  operation,  including 
the  wages  of  more  than  1,000,000  employes,  they 
have  left  an  available  revenue  of  $415,000,000. 
More  than  one  of  the  larger  companies  has  a 
revenue  greater  than  that  of  the  United  States 
government  was  thirty  years  ago.  To  earn  this 
enormous  sum  the  roads  work  night  and  day, 
seven  days  a  week.  Through  the  darkest  and 
stormiest  winter  midnight,  as  well  as  through  the 
pleasantest  summer  afternoon,  the  locomotive 
fires  are  kept  alight  and  the  wheels  revolve  un- 
ceasingly along  the  rails.  The  work  they  ac- 
complish is  something  startling  in  the  aggregate. 
In  the  year  1887,  the  latest  for  which  the  com- 
plete figures  are  at  hand,  the  railroads  of  the 
country  carried  428,000,000  passengers,  travelling 
10,500,000  miles,  a  distance  equal  to  450  times 
around  the  globe.  The  freight  carried  in  the 


438        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

same  year  amounted  to  552,000,000  tons,  and  the 
distance  traversed  62,000,000  miles. 

It  is  a  commonplace  to  speak  of  what  the  rail- 
roads have  done  in  the  way  of  opening  up  the 
country  and  bringing  the  blessings  of  civilization 
into  the  wilderness.  In  the  Western  country, 
where  the  people  formerly  wore  homespun  or  the 
coarsest  fabrics  of  Eastern  looms,  the  women  now 
receive  weekly  fashion  plates  still  damp  from  the 
press,  and  every  cross-roads  store  has  in  stock  the 
latest  patterns,  not  only  from  the  great  cities  of 
our  own  land,  but  from  the  centres  of  European 
fashion.  The  postal  system  follows  along  the 
iron  way,  the  metropolitan  newspaper  reaches 
the  most  obscure  hamlet  daily,  and  a  chapter 
might  be  written  upon  the  growth  of  the  railway 
postal  service  alone.  The  telegraph  lines  enter 
new  territory  with  the  railway,  putting  the 
dweller  in  the  remotest  regions  within  reach  of 
instantaneous  communication  with  all  parts  of 
the  world. 

The  effect  of  the  railroad  in  thus  multiplying 
and  exchanging  not  only  material  products,  but 
distributing  the  news  of  the  day  and  bringing  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  slope  and  those  of  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  into  daily  intellectual  inter- 
course, and  thus  welding  all  into  one  homogeneous 
people,  is  a  theme  which  has  yet  to  be  fully  dealt 
with  by  the  pen  of  the  historian.  From  Maine 
to  Texas,  go  where  you  will,  you  find  the  people 


RAILROADS.  439 

read  the  same  news,  discuss  the  same  questions, 
and  are  subjected  to  the  same  vivifying  influences, 
the  ideas  of  the  farmer  on  the  borders  broadening 
in  even  pace  with  those  of  the  dwellers  in  the 
cities  until  such  a  thing  as  provincialism  is  un- 
known on  this  continent.  Indeed,  foreigners 
who  visit  our  shores,  who  have  a  taste  for  the 
picturesque,  complain  of  this  monotony,  and  be- 
wail the  fact  that  the  American  town  or  hamlet, 
whether  situated  on  the  borders  of  the  great 
northern  lakes  or  on  the  torrid  shores  of  the 
Gulf,  presents  essentially  the  same  exterior  as- 
pect and  identical  social  conditions. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  that  this  great 
railway  system,  with  its  unprecedented  army  of 
employes  and  the  revenues  of  an  empire,  should 
be  an  unadulterated  blessing ;  that  it  should  not 
carry  some  alloy  in  its  composition.  Like  most 
humane  institutions,  even  the  most  beneficent,  it 
has  wrought  mischiefs  as  well  as  brought  great 
benefits.  Until  now  the  needs  of  our  rapidly 
developing  country  were  such  that  communi- 
ties everywhere  were  clamoring  for  roads  which 
would  bring  to  them  what  they  needed  from  the 
outside  world  and  place  within  reach  markets  for 
their  own  products.  Consequently,  every  possi- 
ble inducement  was  offered  for  the  building  of 
railway  lines,  and  without  surrounding  their  con- 
struction with  such  safeguards  as  had  already 
been  found  necessary  in  old  and  thickly  popu- 


440  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OE  THEE." 

lated  countries.  The  result  lias  been  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  an  over-building  of  lines 
which  has  entailed  subsequent  losses  and  diffi- 
culties and  the  creation  of  abuses  and  complica- 
tions which  together  constitute  what  has  come 
to  be  known  as  "  the  railway  problem."  It  is 
clear  that  what  might  be  broadly  called  the  con- 
structive period  in  our  railway  system  is  ended, 
and  that  we  have  now  fairly  entered  upon  a 
period  of  restriction  and  regulation.  The  people 
have  now  to  learn  to  subdue  and  control  these 
great  Frankensteins  of  their  own  creation. 

As  Mr.  Frederick  Taylor,  President  of  the 
Western  National  Bank  of  New  York,  who  has 
all  his  life  been  a  close  student  of  the  railway 
question,  says :  "  Though  the  railroads  have 
probably  contributed  more  than  all  other  agen- 
cies combined  to  make  the  United  States  what 
they  are,  no  one  will  deny  that  the  incalculable 
benefit  which  we  have  derived  from  their  growth 
and  development  has  not  been,  and  is  not,  wholly 
'  unmixed  of  evil.'  Leaving  out  other  considera- 
tions, it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  three-quarters 
of  all  the  legislative  corruption  from  which  we 
have  suffered  during  the  past  fifty  years  have 
been  directly  chargeable  to  the  railways;  and 
that  a  very  large  proportion,  perhaps  nearly  as 
much  as  half,  of  the  litigation  that  has  occupied 
our  courts  during  the  same  period  has  been  di- 
rectly connected  with  railway  matters," 


RAILROADS.  441 

The  great  panic  of  1873  was  directly  due  to 
the  over-building  of  railroads.  Following  it 
came  several  years  of  terrible  business  depres- 
sion throughout  the  country,  in  which  time  and 
money  was  spent  in  trying  to  clear  away  the 
wreck.  Hundreds  of  railroad  companies  were 
bankrupted  and  loss  and  suffering  were  entailed 
upon  hundreds  of  thousands  of  persons  who  had 
invested  their  savings  in  these  enterprises.  In 
no  end  of  instances  the  stocks  of  the  companies 
were  wiped  out  of  existence  entirely,  the  roads 
sold  under  foreclosure  and  reorganized.  Again, 
in  1877,  when  the  country  was  just  begin- 
ning to  recover  from  the  shock,  it  was  dis- 
turbed and  depressed  for  a  long  time  by  the 
trouble  between  the  railroad  companies  and  their 
workmen,  which  in  some  cases  culminated  in 
riot  and  bloodshed.  Another  period  of  artifi- 
cially stimulated  railroad  building  reached  its 
culmination  in  the  panic  of  1884,  an<l  two  years 
later  widespread  strikes  among  railway  opera- 
tives again  disturbed  the  entire  business  of  the 
country.  During  all  this  period  the  legislatures 
of  the  various  States  and  the  National  Congress 
were  busy  with  legislation  intended  to  modify  or 
remedy  the  evils  complained  of. 

The  question  presents  such  difficulties  that 
many  students,  including  Mr.  Taylor,  can  find 
a  solution  of  the  question  only  in  the  suggestion 
of  national  control  of  the  railroads  throughout 


442  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

the  country.  Mr.  Taylor's  idea,  however,  is  that 
they  should  not  be  owned  and  operated  by  the 
nation,  but  that  the  government  should  have  the 
same  sort  of  control  which  it  now  exercises  over 
the  national  banks ;  in  other  words,  that  the 
national  railway  commission  should  supervise 
the  railroads  with  the  same  authority  which  the 
Treasury  Department  exercise  sover  the  national 
banking  system. 

The  unrestricted  building  of  railroads  under 
the  provisions  of  the  general  railroad  acts  passed 
in  most  of  the  States,  following  that  adopted  in 
New  York  in  1850,  has  given  rise  to  destructive 
competition  and  brought  about  some  of  the  knot- 
tiest points  in  the  railroad  problem.  It  was  held 
for  many  years,  and  is  even  now  contended  by  a 
great  many  people,  that  the  building  of  railroads, 
like  any  other  business,  should  be  left  free  to  the 
unrestricted  enterprise  of  individuals  and  associa- 
tions of  individuals.  "  If  a  lot  of  fellows  see  fit 
to  put  their  money  into  building  a  railroad  where 
there  is  not  enough  traffic  to  sustain  it,  and  the 
road  goes  into  bankruptcy,  that  is  their  affair,  not 
ours ;  it  is  their  money  that  is  lost."  That  is 
about  how  the  average  citizen  talks  on  this  sub- 
ject. There  could  be  no  greater  mistake. 

In  the  first  place  the  railroads  are  public  high, 
ways,  aud  as  such  must  be  supervised  by  the 
community.  When  in  ordinary  conversation  in 
this  country  we  speak  of  a  "  road,"  from  Chicago 


RAILROADS.  443 

to  St.  Paul  for  instance,  it  is  always  understood 
that  a  railroad  is  meant.  In  the  older  countries 
the  mention  of  "  roads  "  is  understood  to  refer  to 
a  turnpike.  The  reason  foi  the  difference  of 
usage  is  obvious.  In  old  and  settled  countries 
the  highways  were  in  existence  for  centuries  be- 
fore rails  were  laid,  and  the  word  "  road  "  there- 
fore continues  to  hold  its  primary  meaning. 
With  us  it  is  the  railroad  line  which  first  enters 
into  new  territory,  and  it  may  be  years  before  the 
contiguous  region  is  sufficiently  settled  to  render 
an  ordinary  wagon-road  necessary. 

The  vital  fallacy  in  the  popular  argument  that 
"  competition  will  settle  this  question  of  too  many 
roads  "  lies  in  assuming  that  a  railroad  is,  like  an 
individual,  private  enterprise.  If  a  man  -starts  a 
hat  shop  in  a  neighborhood  already  well  supplied 
with  hatters,  and  he  is  bankrupted  in  the  strug- 
gle for  business,  that  is  the  end  of  him.  He  has 
lost  his  money  and  the  shop  is  closed  and  the 
equilibrium  of  supply  and  demand  in  hats  is  re- 
stored. But  when  a  railroad  becomes  bankrupted 
it  does  not  go  out  of  existence  in  that  way. 
Where  is  there  an  instance  in  this  country  of  a 
road,  once  built,  having  been  abandoned  or  ob- 
literated ?  No ;  the  bankrupted  road  is  placed 
under  the  protection  of  a  court  and  in  the  hands 
of  a  receiver.  It  conducts  a  fiercer  warfare  than 
ever  against  its  solvent  rivals  ;  for  the  bankrupted 
road  is  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  paying  in- 


444  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

terest  on  its  mortgage  or  paying  its  debts,  and 
continues  to  do  business  at  lower  rates  than  ever, 
for  the  receiver  must  keep  it  a-going  pending  its 
reorganization  or  whatever  disposition  is  to  be 
made  of  it. 

The  English  people  long  ago  reached  a  point 
which  we  are  approaching  fast,  in  that  before  a 
railroad  is  built  its  projectors  must  obtain  a 
special  charter,  and  in  order  to  obtain  that  they 
must  prove  that  there  is  a  public  need  of  the  new 
line.  Any  one  who  has  read  the  papers  for  the 
past  few  years  will  readily  recall  many  instances 
of  the  destructive  effects  of  building  lines  in  ter- 
ritory already  well  supplied  with  transportation 
facilities.  Take  the  West  Shore  road,  which  par- 
alleled the  New  York  Central,  and  not  only  sunk 
the  capital  of  its  own  builders  but  forced  a  decline 
of  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  market  price  of  New  York 
Central,  which  from  an  eight  per  cent,  dividend- 
paying  corporation  practically  ceased  to  earn 
more  than  its  fixed  charges.  The  "Nickel 
Plate"  road,  paralleling  the  Lake  Shore  from 
Buffalo  to  Toledo,  is  another  glaring  instance  in 
point.  And  still  later  we  have  the  building  of 
an  unnecessary  line  from  Kansas  City  to  Chicago 
by  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  Railroad, 
which  has  resulted  in  the  fall  of  the  stock  of  the 
latter  company  from  about  par  to  less  than  fifty 
cents  on  the  dollar,  with  a  coincident  cessation 
of  dividends. 


RAILROADS.  445 

A  nost  of  mischiefs  and  evils  have  sprung 
from  the  almost  unrestrained  power  of  railroad 
officials  in  the  matter  of  their  charges.  By 
charging  some  shippers  more  and  others  less  by 
means  of  secret  contracts,  the  officials  opened  to 
themselves  a  field  of  unlimited  profit.  An  awk- 
ward fact,  which  there  is  no  denying,  is  the  large 
fortunes,  in  most  cases  running  into  the  millions, 
possessed  by  men  who  are  or  who  have  been  rail- 
road officials  on  modest  salaries,  and  who  had 
nothing  before  entering  upon  these  positions. 
The  cost  of  transportation  being  such  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  price  of  commodities,  it  was 
quite  easy  for  the  railway  to  enrich  one  man  and 
beggar  or  drive  out  of  business  another  in  the 
same  trade,  and  this  was  done  according  to  the 
personal  interests  of  the  man  or  men  who  could 
thus  make  rates.  More  than  this,  it  was  not  at 
all  difficult  for  the  railroad  to  impoverish  one  town 
or  city  and  build  up  another  by  discriminating  in 
rates. 

In  fact,  the  railroad  had  the  power  to  say 
whether  a  merchant  should  or  should  not  succeed 
in  business,  whether  a  town  should  or  should  not 
grow  in  population  and  prosperity.  In  the  Hep- 
burn committee's  investigation  of  the  New  York 
railroads  in  1879  it  was  shown  that  the  milling 
business  in  certain  towns  of  northern  New  York 
had  been  killed  by  railroads  granting  rates  which 
favored  Minneapolis  and  other  western  points. 


440  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

In  one  town  all  the  millers  but  one  were  obliged 
to  go  out  of  business,  and  it  was  elicited  in  the 
investigation  that  this  man  had  a  secret  contract 
with  the  railroad  by  which  they  carried  his  com- 
modity for  much  lower  rates  than  any  of  the 
others.  The  merchants  of  New  York  at  that 
time  complained  that  the  discriminations  of  the 
railroads  against  the  metropolis  were  driving 
away  its  trade  to  Baltimore  and  other  points. 
The  nefarious  contracts  made  by  the  railroads 
with  the  Standard  Oil  Company  were  discovered 
so  recently  as  to  be  still  fresh  in  the  public  mind. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  railroads  not  only 
carried  the  Standard's  oil  for  a  fraction  of  that 
charged  a  certain  individual  oil  refiner,  but 
actually  paid  over  to  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
the  overcharges  of  which  they  mulcted  the  un- 
fortunate individual  refiner. 

The  creation  of  railroad  commissions  in  the 
various  States,  and  the  more  recent  establishment 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  under 
the  provisions  of  an  act  prohibiting  these  dis- 
criminations, forbidding  the  charging  more  for  a 
longer  than  for  a  shorter  haul,  and  inflicting  a 
severe  penalty  for  making  railroad  pools,  goes  far 
to  remedy  many  of  the  most  glaring  evils  com- 
plained of.  But  laws  after  all  cannot  make  men 
moral,  and,  as  President  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  said  recently,  "  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  the  railroad  troubles  is  the 


RAI1  ROADS.  447 

low  standard  of  commercial  honor  among  railway 
officials."  The  opportunities  for  personal  profit 
possessed  by  dishonest  railroad  officials,  while 
somewhat  diminished  by  the  prohibition  of  dis- 
criminating rates  by  which  they  were  enabled  to 
build  up  one  town  in  which  they  had  an  interest, 
or  to  favor  certain  firms  in  which  they  or  their 
friends  were  partners,  have  been  removed ;  but 
the  avenues  of  unlawful  gain  still  open  to  them 
are  almost  innumerable.  As  Herbert  Spencer 
remarked  in  dealing  with  this  same  subject  in 
England  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  "  corpora- 
tions have  no  souls."  A  combination  of  men 
will  stoop  to  acts  which  the  conscience  of  no  one 
of  them  would  sanction  as  an  individual  act. 
So,  too,  a  man  will  deal  with  the  rights  and  prop- 
erty of  a  corporation  as  he  would  never  think  of 
dealing  with  those  of  an  individual. 

Among  the  more  frequent  abuses  of  their  offi- 
cial power,  we  find  railroad  officers  personally 
buying  lands  in  new  territory  or  mining  lands, 
and  then  building  at  the  expense  of  the  corpora- 
tion branch  lines  to  reach  these  properties  and 
enhance  their  value  ;  the  establishment  of  manu- 
facturing or  business  enterprises,  in  which  the 
railway  men  are  often  secret  partners,  and  secur- 
ing for  these  enterprises  favorable  terms,  and 
then  contracting  with  the  railroad  to  do  business 
for  less  than  cost ;  the  fast  freight  lines,  which 
ply  over  many  roads,  and  which  have  excep- 


448         "MY  COUNTPY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

tionally  easy  contracts  with  the  corporations 
and  are  in  many  instances  the  individual  enter- 
prises of  railway  officials.  It  was  not  long  since 
shown  that  some  of  these  lines  were  actually 
competing  with  the  railroad  proper  for  freight, 
and  carrying  it  with  express  speed  as  low  as 
the  railroad  could  afford  to  carry  it  in  ordinary 
freight  cars. 

Many  of  the  swindles  and  abuses  in  railroad 
management  owe  their  conception  to  the  scan- 
dalous example  of  Fisk  and  Gould  in  the  Brie 
Railroad.  One  or  two  of  the  little  tricks  played 
by  Gould  and  his  partner  in  that  road,  will  give 
an  idea  of  the  possibilities  of  profit  in  dishonest 
railway  management.  When  Gould  became 
president  and  treasurer  of  the  road  twenty  years 
ago,  the  Brie  had  a  very  favorable  and  long- 
standing lease  of  the  Chemung  and  Canan- 
daigua  roads.  The  rental  was  exceedingly  low, 
having  been  made  at  a  time  when  the  leased 
lines  were  in  financial  trouble.  By  the  terms 
of  thfc  contract,  if  the  Brie  should  at  any  time 
fail  to  pay  the  rental,  the  lease  was  to  be  thereby 
abrogated.  Under  the  circumstances,  the  secu- 
rities of  these  roads  were  naturally  selling  for  a 
mere  song.  Gould,  through  his  agents,  quietly 
bought  up  these  securities  for  about  their  weight 
in  waste  paper,  thus  becoming  the  sole  owner  of 
the  roads.  Then,  in  his  capacity  as  president 
and  treasurer  of  the  Brie,  he  deliberately  failed 


RAILROADS.  449 

to  pay  the  rental,  thus  cutting  off  the  road  from 
its  lease  and  leaving  him  free  to  dispose  of  it  as 
lie  pleased.  He  thereupon  sold  the  roads  to  the 
Northern  Central  Railroad  of  Pennsylvania  for 
three  million  dollars. 

Again,  the  Northern  Railroad  of  New  Jersey 
had  a  stock  capital  of  $159,000  and  $300,000 
of  bonds.  It  had  never  been  able  to  earn  divi- 
dends on  this  small  amount  of  stock.  It  was 
leased  to  the  Brie  on  favorable  terms.  Here  was 
another  example  of  Gould's  genius.  Four  mil- 
lion dollars  in  bonds  were  issued  on  the  prop- 
erty, and  a  million  dollars  of  stock,  which  was 
divided  among  the  conspirators ;  and  then,  to 
give  these  securities  a  market  value,  a  new  lease 
was  made  to  the  Brie  by  which  the  latter  guaran- 
teed thirty-five  per  cent,  of  the  road's  net  earn- 
ings— enough  to  pay  interest  on  the  enormous 
creation  of  new  bonds  and  four  or  five  per  cent, 
on  the  stock. 

One  more  instance :  The  National  Stock  Yard 
Company  was  organized  by  the  conspirators. 
The  Brie  Company  advanced  a  million  dollars, 
taking  bonds  to  that  amount.  A  million  dollars 
of  stock  was  then  issued,  representing  not  one 
cent  of  money  paid,  and  was  divided  among  the 
gang. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  nearly  every  large 
railroad  company  there  is  a  construction  ring 
which  builds  all  extensions  and  feeders  on  the 

29 


45C  "  Mil    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

most  extravagantly  profitable  terms  granted  by 
the  railroad  company,  the  officials  of  the  railroad 
being  the  chief  parties  in  interest  in  the  ring. 

Aside  from  all  these  rascalities  in  the  actual 
management  of  the  properties,  is  the  deplorable 
fact  that  the  officials  and  directors  speculate  in 
the  shares  of  their  own  concerns,  thus  betraying 
the  interests  of  the  bona  fide  stockholders,  whose 
trustees  they  are.  It  is  more  than  suspected 
that  the  chief  bears  who  have  been  active  in 
depressing  the  securities  of  some  of  the  Western 
roads  during  the  past  winter  were  in  partnership 
with  the  directors  and  other  officers  of  these  cor- 
porations. It  is  easy  to  see  that  those  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  the  exact  earnings  of  a  company 
and  to  foresee  the  possibilities  in  the  way  of  divi- 
dends have  the  advantage  of  everybody  else  in 
estimating  the  future  market  value  of  the  secu- 
rities. 

While  the  holders  of  railroad  bonds  and  shares. 

• 

however,  display  so  much  apathy  with  reference 
to  the  management  of  their  properties  and  the 
election  of  proper  men  to  administer  them,  they 
deserve  little  sympathy.  It  is  notorious  that  the 
annual  elections  of  most  of  our  railroads  are  the 
merest  pro  forma  affairs.  The  men  who  are  in 
power  send  out  blanks  every  year  asking  for  the 
proxies  of  shareholders,  and  the  latter  forward 
them,  and  thus  enable  these  men  to  continue  in 
power  and  practically  own  the  corporations  they 


RAILROADS.  451 

control.  Where  there  is  a  contest  for  control,  it 
usually  lies,  not  between  the  shareholders,  on 
some  kind  of  principle  in  the  administration  of 
the  property,  but  is  found  to  be  between  two 
speculative  Wall  street  factions,  each  of  whom 
is  anxious  to  secure  the  pickings.  Until  the 
shareholders  of  American  roads  take  an  active 
interest  in  their  properties,  as  do  English  share- 
holders for  instance,  and  insist  upon  the  publi- 
cation of  the  annual  reports  in  advance  of  the 
meetings  in  order  that  they  may  attend  the 
meetings  and  question  their  officials  upon  all 
dubious  points,  there  can  be  little  hope  of  per- 
manent reform.  In  cases  where  there  is  a  con- 
test, it  is  not  at  all  uncommon  for  an  interested 
faction  to  pay  stockholders  a  small  sum  for  the 
proxies  on  their  stock — a  proceeding  which  has 
been  aptly  compared  to  a  merchant  selling  to  a 
burglar  for  a  dollar  in  cash  the  use  of  the  key 
of  his  safe  every  night.  So^much  for  the  rela- 
tions of  holders  of  shares  and  bonds  to  the  men 
who  manage  the  corporations.  As  to  the  rela- 
tions of  the  railroads  to  the  public,  it  is  clear 
that  the  recent  widespread  discussion  and  the 
salutary  influence  of  the  Interstate  Commission 
must  lead  to  beneficent  results. 

Aside  from  the  great  majority  of  the  people, 
whose  interests  are  indirectly  but  surely  affected 
by  any  juggling  with  railroad  properties  and 
principles,  is  a  great  army  of  men  who  obtain 


452  *'  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEB." 

their  livelihood  and  that  of  their  families  by 
work  on  or  for  railroads.  An  army  ?  Yes ; 
more  men  than  ever  were  seen  in  the  largest 
army  in  the  world.  All  of  them  are  "  effectives," 
too — none  of  them  can  be  found  among  "  the 
sick,  lame  and  lazy."  Chauncey  M.  Depew, 
President  of  the  New  York  Central  road,  says 
truly:  "  With  those  who  are  actually  in  the  ser- 
vice, and  those  who  contribute  by  supplies,  one- 
tenth  of  the  working  force  of  the  United  States 
are  in  the  railroad  service ;  and  that  tenth  in- 
cludes the  most  energetic  men  and  most  intelli- 
gent among  the  workers  of  this  magnificent 
country.  There  are  ten  million  working  men  in 
this  country,  and  six  hundred  thousand  are  di- 
rectly employed  in  the  railway  service.  With 
their  families  they  constitute  a  larger  population 
than  the  largest  of  the  States." 

Mr.  Depew  further  says,  with  equal  truth: 
'  There  is  no  democracy  like  the  railway  system 
of  this'  land.  Men  are  not  taken  out  of  rich 
men's  parlors  and  placed  in  positions  of  responsi- 
bility. Men  are  not  taken  because  they  are  sons 
of  such,  and  put  into  paying  places  in  the  rail- 
way systems ;  but  the  superintendents  all  over 
the  country,  the  men  who  officer  and  man  the 
passenger,  the  freight,  and  motive  power  and  ac- 
counting departments,  all  of  them  come  up  from 
the  bottom.  Are  you  going  to  stop  this  thing  ? 
No !  There  are  no  rne'n  being  born  or  to  be  born 


RAILROADS.  453 

who  are  to  be  by  inheritance  the  superintendents, 
treasurers,  comptrollers,  auditors,  the  freight  and 
ticket  agents,  the  conductors,  the  yard  masters, 
who  are  to  be  the  master  mechanics,  the  foremen 
of  the  shops,  cf  the  future.  They  are  not  born. 
They  have  got  to  be  made  ahd  come  from  the 
bottom  up.  And  in  every  one  of  these  depart- 
ments to-day,  in  every  railroad  in  the  United 
States,  in  the  humblest  positions,  earning  the 
smallest  salaries,  are  men,  who  within  the  next 
twenty-five  years,  are  to  fill  all  these  places  by 
promotion.  Don't  tell  me  there  is  no  chance  to 
rise  in  this  country.'7 

When  this  army  grumbles,  as  once  in  a  while 
it  does,  there  is  good  cause  for  alarm ;  not  that 
they,  like  the  disaffected  of  other  armies,  may  do 
damage  to  life  and  property,  but  because  their 
troubles  are  almost  always  traceable  to  stock-jug- 
gling rascalities,  from  which  the  men  have  no 
hope  of  redress.  Some  of  the  companies  allow 
no  business  operations  to  interfere  with  the  rights 
of  their  employees.  Mr.  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  is 
probably  the  most  extensive  owner  of  railway 
stock  in  the  world,  but  he  finds  time  to  see  his 
own  employees  frequently,  and  has  even  built  and 
furnished  a  handsome  club-room  for  them.  He 
has  also  been  active  in  assisting  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  in  establishing  reading 
rooms  at  railway  centres.  President  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  of  the  Union  Pacific  Company, 


454  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEK." 

found  time  not  long  ago  to  publish,  in  a  maga- 
zine article,  the  outline  of  a  system  for  retaining 
and  encouraging  competent  employees.  President 
Roberts,  of  the  great  Pennsylvania  road,  is  as 
proud  of  his  men  as  any  general  ever  was  of  his 
army. 

These  railroad  magnates,  and  others  who  might 
be  named,  are  setting  a  good  example,  which  it  is 
to  be  hoped  some  other  officials  will  have  sense 
enough  to  follow.  It  is  bad  enough  for  stock- 
holders to  be  annoyed  and  impoverished  by  stock- 
juggling  operations,  but  when  the  employees  also 
suffer  the  whole  country  suffers  with  them.  It 
is  an  unpardonable  crime  for  any  company,  man- 
aging a  road  which  deserves  to  exist,  to  take  such 
good  care  of  its  managers  that  its  employees  must 
strike  and  even  fight  to  be  sure  of  living  wages. 
Railway  strikes  hurt  every  traveller,  every  ship- 
per, every  receiver  in  the  country.  They  never 
would  begin  if  managers  were  honest.  Stick  a 
pin  here  and  keep  youi  eye  on  it. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
i 

BANKS   AND   BANKING. 

WE  are  told  by  an  old  chronicler  of  the  quaint 
and  curious  that  in  ancient  times  a  number  of 
Hebrews  scattered  in  the  cities  along  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean  conducted  a  most  profitable 
banking  business  without  the  use  of  capital,  by 
drawing  one  upon  the  other,  in  a  perfect  circle, 
the  draft  upon  one  being  taken  up  by  the  next 
banker  in  the  series,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

Perhaps  it  will  not  do  to  scrutinize  this  story 
too  closely,  but  there  are  many  instances  of 
almost  as  odd  and  ingenious  devices  in  the  his- 
tory of  banking.  It  was  not  until  within  a  com- 
paratively recent  period  that  banks  began  to 
issue  circulating  notes.  The  early  bankers  were 
for  the  most  part  merely  lenders  of  money,  and 
this  species  of  banker  was  called  into  existence 
very  early  in  the  world's  history.  In  fact,  he 
was  the  natural  result  of  the  invention  of  money. 

"A  simple  invention,"  says  Carlyle,  "  it  was 
in  the  Old  World  grazier,  sick  of  lugging  his  ox 
about  the  country  until  he  could  get  it  bartered 

for  corn  or  oil,  to  take  a  piece  of  leather  and 

456 


456  *'  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

thereon  scratch  or  stamp  the  mere  figure  of  an 
ox  (pecus) ,  put  it  in  his  pocket  and  call  it  pe- 
cunia,  money.  Yet  hereby  did  barter  grow  sale ; 
the  leather  money  is  now  golden  and  paper,  and 
all  miracles  have '  been  out-miracled ;  for  there 
are  Rothschilds  and  English  national  debts ;  and 
whoso  has  sixpence  is  sovereign  to  the  length  of 
sixpence  over  all  men ;  commands  cooks  to  feed 
him,  philosophers  to  teach  him,  kings  to  mount 
guard  over  him — to  the  length  of  sixpence." 

It  has  been  claimed  on  behalf  of  the  bankers' 
craft  that  they  date  back  to  Abraham,  because  it 
is  recorded  that  he  weighed  out  four  hundred 
shekels  of  silver  as  the  purchase-money  for  the 
cave  and  field  of  Macpelah  wherein  to  bury  Sarah. 
But  this  is  rather  far-fetched.  Livy,  however, 
writes  of  the  tables  of  the  money-changers  in 
the  Roman  forum  existing  300  years  before 
Christ,  and  later  Latin  writers  refer  to  deposits, 
checks  and  drafts,  with  all  the  familiarity  of  a 
financier  of  the  present  day,  as  if  they  were  in 
general  use.  In  these  days,  when  the  capitalists 
of  the  world  are  puzzled  to  invest  their  money 
safely  to  yield  them  three  per  cent.,  it  is  refresh- 
ing to  remember  that  the  old  Greek  bankers  or 
money-lenders  exacted  as  much  as  thirty-six  per 
cent,  a  year  from  the  spendthrift  youths  or  em- 
barrassed merchants  of  that  day.  Aristophanes, 
in  one  of  his  comedies,  makes  a  money-lender 
bitterly  bewail  the  fact  that  he  has  only  been 


!  BANKS    AND    BANKING.  457 

able  to  get  four  per  cent,  on  his  loan.  The 
Greek  bankers  used  the  temples  as  safe-deposit 
vaults  for  the  storage  of  their  treasures,  and 
seem  to  have  taken  the  priests  into  a  sort  of 
partnership.  Something  of  the  same  sort  prob- 
ably prevailed  among  the  Jews,  and  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  they  were  usurious,  for  the 
Saviour,  when  He  overturned  their  tables  in  the 
temple,  called  them  thieves — "  My  house  shall 
be  called  the  house  of  prayer,  but  ye  have  made 
it  a  den  of  thieves." 

During  succeeding  ages,  however,  the  meth- 
ods of  banking  seem  to  have  been  -lost  until  re- 
discovered and  re-established  by  the  Jews.  A 
bank  was  established  at  Venice  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  twelfth  century,  another  at  Genoa  in  1345, 
and  they  came  into  existence  in  several  of  the 
Dutch  cities  early  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
All  of  these  were,  in  a  sense,  state  banks,  lending 
money  to  the  state,  and  exercising  their  func- 
tions under  its  authority  and  protection.  The 
Jews,  and  the  Lombards,  who  had  been  taught  in 
their  schools,  were  almost  the  only  money-lenders 
of  Europe  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. 

The  first  money-lender  in  England  who  at  all 
approaches  our  modern  idea  of  a  banker  was 
William  de  la  Pole,  a  shipping-merchant  of  Hull, 
who  loaned  Edward  the  Third  large  sums  to 
carry  on  his  French  wars,  and  in  return  the  king 


458  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE.'' 

made  over  to  him  the  collection  of  customs  and 
internal  revenues.  He  collected  the  royal  rents 
and  acted  as  paymaster  of  the  army,  and  in  a 
general  way  became  the  royal  banker.  Naturally 
a.  title  was  conferred  upon  him. 

The  prefix  of  "Sir"  was  subsequently  given  to 
Dick  Whittington,  of  cat  celebrity,  for  similar  ser- 
vices to  Henry  the  Fourth  and  Henry  the  Fifth. 
The  goldsmiths  in  those  times  acted  as  money- 
lenders and  pawnbrokers.  After  Charles  the  First 
grabbed  about  a  million  dollars,  which  they  had 
deposited  in  the  mint  for  safe-keeping,  the  nobles 
began  to  deposit  their  money  with  the  gold- 
smiths, who  allowed  them  interest  thereon,  and 
from  having  the  custody  of  their  rents  and  their 
income  it  was  a  natural  step  for  them  to  request 
the  goldsmiths  to  collect  the  money.  The  gold- 
smiths gave  written  evidences  of  indebtedness 
for  the  sums  intrusted  to  them,  and  these  were 
often  transmitted  by  the  holders  in  settlement  of 
debt.  When  o,ne  of  these  goldsmiths  speculated 
unfortunately  or  his  business  went  wrong,  his 
depositors  naturally  had  to  suffer. 

Losses  of  this  kind  paved  the  way  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Bank  of  England  in  1694. 
It  was  planned  by  a  Scotchman  named  William 
Patterson,  who,  however,  derived  many  of  his 
ideas  from  the  Bank  of  Amsterdam,  which  was 
then  in  successful  operation.  In  return  for  a 
loan  of  twelve  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling 


BANKS   AND    BANKING.  459 

to  the  government  the  lenders,  who  organized 
the  bank,  were  granted  certain  exclusive  priv- 
ileges, and  their  concern  became  the  depository 
of  the  government  money  and  fyas  remained  such 
ever  since.  It  has  now  the  accounts  of  many 
thousand  private  depositors,  pays  the  interest  on 
the  government  debt,  issues  circulating  notes, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  controls  the  rate  of  in- 
terest on  money  in  England. 

As  to  the  establishment  of  banking,  Congress- 
man Ben  Butterworth,  of  Ohio,  says : 

"  In  the  forces  of  civilization  we  find  the  banker 
in  the  forefront.  It  was  a  banker  that  first  taught 
the  world  the  maxim  of  an  honest  commerce. 
It  was  the  Bank  of  Venice  that  was  the  first  to 
arbitrate  commerce  and  control  the  seas  ;  it  was 
a  banker  that  first  taught  a  nation  that  the  pub- 
lic fidelity  was  the  right  basis  of  all  successful 
effort  in  the  business  world.  For  six  hundred 
years  Venice  maintained  unstained  her  honor, 
elevating  the  civilization  of  the  world.  In  course 
of  time  she  was  succeeded  by  Amsterdam  and 
Antwerp,  their  bankers  honoring  every  check 
and  paying  every  piece  of  paper,  teaching  the 
world  that  there  was  a  giant  in  trade  and  com- 
merce capable  of  strangling  a  nation.  The 
bankers  thus  brought  the  world  together,  made 
the  nations  of  the  earth  one  man,  one  common- 
wealth." 

Savings  banks  originated  in  Switzerland,  and 


460  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE-''' 

were  instituted  ma:nly  for  the  benefit  of  the 
poor.  They  were  organized  by  benevolent  per- 
sons, who  received  no  salaries  for  their  services, 
and  no  capital  was  required.  The  purpose  was 
rather  to  induce  working-people  to  save  from 
their  earnings  something  for  a  rainy  day  or  to 
provide  for  their  old  age,  and  consequently  but 
little  effort  at  first  was  made  to  secure  large  earn- 
ings on  the  deposits.  The  first  we  can  learn  of 
in  Switzerland  was  established  in  1805.  A  dozen 
years  later  they  were  organized  in  Scotland  and 
England,  and  shortly  after  in  France.  In  this 
country  the  first  was  organized  in  Boston  in 
1816,  and  within  a  few  years  they  were  to  be 
found  in  New  York,  Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia, 
and  their  success  in  these  centres  soon  led  to 
their  establishment  in  all  the  large  towns 
throughout  the  country.  They  were  chartered 
by  the  States,  and  were  held  by  the  State 
authorities  to  account  for  their  honest  and  pru- 
dent management.  Naturally  the  ideas  of  legis- 
lators in  the  various  States  differed  somewhat  as 
to  the  nature  and  functions  of  the  banks,  and 
hence  there  was  a  difference  in  their  organization 
at  the  beginning,  which  subsequent  legislation 
has  made  still  more  marked.  There  are  now  in 
existence  three  different  classes  of  savings  banks : 
the  first  is  of  the  primitive  type,  instituted  with- 
out capital ;  the  second  are  joint-stock  concerns, 
and  the  third  are  of  the  trust-company  type,  and 


BANKS    AND    BANKING.  461 

transact  a  banking  business  aside  from  the  mere 
receipt  and  investment  of  deposits. 

As  population  increased  and  the  banks  multi- 
plied in  number,  and  the  desirability  of  estab- 
lishing these  banks  became  more  general,  they 
were  no  longer  required  to  have  a  special  charter 
in  each  instance,  but  were  permitted  to  organize 
tinder  general  laws.  The  deposits  in  these  now 
amount  to  a  thousand  million  dollars,  and  the 
number  of  depositors  in  the  Northern  and  Middle 
States  is  about  three  millions.  Objection  has 
been  raised  in  some  quarters  to  the  joint-stock 
type  of  savings  bank,  on  the  ground  that  its 
deposits  must  be  loaned  profitably  for  the  pay- 
ment of  dividends,  and  that  consequently  greater 
risks  are  incurred.  This  risk  is  still  greater 
where  savings  banks  are  permitted  to  do  a  com- 
mercial business,  as  the  paper  which  they  dis- 
count may  prove  inconvertible  in  a  time  of 
commercial  depression  or  in  a  panic.  In  some 
of  the  States  the  depositors  are  given  the  prefer- 
ence in  such  circumstances. 

Mr.  T.  H.  Hinchrnan,  a  prominent  banker  of 
Detroit,  says :  "  The  change  from  the  purpose 
and  policy  of  original  savings  institutions  has 
been  progressive,  but  of  questionable  character. 
It  was  not  the  acquirement  of  experience  or  the 
result  of  greater  wisdom,  but  of  enterprise  by 
those  in  pursuit  of  greater  profit.  Different  aims 
and  objects  should  be  under  distinct,  separate, 


462  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE  " 

and  appropriate  laws.  Benevolent  institutions 
require  different  men  and  other  management 
than  those  conducted  on  a  commercial  basis  for 
profit."  He  argues  that  there  should  be  separate 
enactments  for  savings  institutions  and  for  trust 
companies,  and  indeed  a  wise  distinction  is  made 
by  the  laws  of  most  of  the  older  States.  These 
undoubtedly  prove  advantageous  to  all  banks  and 
bankers,  as  they  simplify  and  increase  their 
business.  Officers  of  banks  doing  a  mixed  busi- 
ness are  thereby  relieved  from  error,  responsi- 
bilities, risks,  and  cares,  and  savings  depositors 
escape  commercial  hazard,  and  are  free  from 
risks  caused  by  mismanagement  of  persons  who 
advertise  as  savings  banks. 

Those  who  remember  the  frightful  confusion 
that  prevailed  before  the  establishment  of  the  Na- 
tional Banking  system,  when  the  notes  of  the  old 
State  banks  constituted  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  circulating  medium,  are  among  the  most  ardent 
admirers  of  the  present  system,  at  least  so  far  as 
its  method  for  the  issue  and  guarantee  of  notes 
is  concerned.  In  those  days  the  laborer  often 
went  to  his  home  on  Saturday  night  carrying 
the  wages  of  his  week's  labor  in  the  shape  of 
notes  issued  by  banks  in  half  a  dozen  different 
States,  and  when  his  thrifty  wife  went  out  to  ex- 
pend them  in  purchase  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
for  her  family  she  would  be  distressed  to  find 
that  for  some  she  could  get  but  ninety  cents  on 


BANKS   AND    BANKING.  463 

the  dollar,  for  others  eighty  cents,  and  that  still 
others  were  of  too  questionable  a  character  to  be 
accepted  by  the  shopkeepers  at  all.  The  farmer 
often  received  for  the  fruits  of  his  toil  notes  of 
which  he  could  know  nothing,  and  which  would  be 
subsequently  declared  by  experts  to  be  worthless 
because  the  bank  which  had  issued  them  was  in 
liquidation,  and  it  was  not  at  all  uncommon  to 
find  a  forged  note  or  two  among  them,  for  in  the 
myriad  issues  of  bills  of  every  conceivable  design 
and  character  of  engraving  the  forger  had  an 
easy  task. 

The  present  National  Banking  system  probably 
never  could  have  been  called  into  existence  ex- 
cept for  the  difficulties  in  which  the  government 
was  involved  by  the  war  with  the  South,  for  a 
scheme  overthrowing,  as  it  did,  so  many  other 
systems  organized  by  the  authority  of  States 
would  have  met  with  an  irresistible  storm  of  op- 
position. As  it  was,  the  act  authorizing  it  was 
fought  not  only  by  the  opponents  of  the  adminis- 
tration then  in  power,  but  by  men  like  Roscoe 
Conkling,  of  New  York,  and  Senator  Collamer, 
of  Vermont. 

Mr.  Logan  C.  Murray,  President  of  the  United 
States  National  Bank  of  New  York  city,  thus 
speaks  of  the  National  Banking  system : 

"  In  1863  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
irrespective  of  State  lines,  took  hold  of  the  bank 
question  and  made  it  a  national  one,  inaugurat- 


464  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OE  THEE." 

ing  a  state  of  perfection  which  I  believe  is  un- 
paralleled in  the  history  of  finance  among  the 
nations  of  the  world. 

"This  child  of  the  war  between  the  States, 
born  in  the  very  travail  of  the  soul  of  the  nation, 
is  to-day  full-grown,  of  five  and  twenty  years, 
comely,  substantial,  and  has  not  been  disappoint- 
ing. Hard  money  was  scarce  in  1861.  There 
had  been  built  upon  this  limited  supply,  through 
the  channels  of  credit,  a  massive  structure ;  sud- 
denly, as  the  storm  arose,  the  sky  became  dark 
and  the  curtains  of  night  were  let  down  around 
State  boundaries ;  with  these  parcels  of  credit, 
known  as  State  currency,  far  from  home,  with  no 
foster  parent  hand  near  by  to  protect  it,  inter- 
course cut  off,  we  found  ourselves  depending 
upon  a  broken  staff  which  was  as  chaff  in  the 
mighty  storm,  commercial  ruin  on  every  hand, 
and  our  shores  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  a  dis- 
membered, useless  and  faithless  medium. 

"We  found  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  our  strongest  moneyed 
institutions,  asking  from  them  aid  in  his  great  dis- 
tress, appealing  to  the  wisdom,  courage,  patriot- 
ism and  resources  of  an  almost  forlorn  hope. 
How  nobly  he  was  met  is  a  matter  of  history. 

"Not,  however,  until  1863,  or  two  years  after- 
wards, did  the  National  Bank  system  have  its 
birth — born  of  despair,  of  want,  blood-bought, 
yea,  in  the  very  darkness  of  that  midnight  storm. 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  465 

Yet  it  is  but  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  And  now 
let  us  sees  after  the  uses  which  have  been  made 
of  the  system,  and  after  the  unparalleled  prosper- 
ity which  has  come -to  us  as  a  nation  under  its 
influence,  if  the  parent  of  all  this  prosperity,  to 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  is  to  breathe  its  last — if 
its  strong  arm  is  to  be  stilled,  and  if  we  are  to 
look  for  something  better.  Shall  we  wonder  that 
men  are  bewildered  when  we  look  into  the  future 
and  ask  what  is  to  supply  the  vacuum  caused  by 
the  decay  of  the  National  Banking  system  ?  I 
for  one  answer : 

"  Do  not  fear,  the  National  Banking  system  is 
not  going  to  be  destroyed.  In  the  fulness  of 
time  it  will  be  yet  better  established. 

"  Let  us  divide  the  system  into  two  parts,  as  it 
were,  and  treat  them  as  they  may  be.  First, 
there  is  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  the 
Secretary  charged  with  certain  duties,  the  Comp- 
troller of  the  Currency,  the  executive  officer  with 
each  of  the  four  thousand  National  Banks  in 
every  section  of  the  land  reporting  to  him,  respon- 
sible to  him,  and  he  to  the  country  at  large — and 
by  far  his  greatest  responsibility  is  the  care, 
faithful  preservation  and  safe  return  to  the  de- 
positors of  the  great  mass  of  the  deposits  of  the 
people  made  with  these  institutions.  This  is  one 
part,  and  the  great  part  of  the  system — the  care 
of  the  deposits  of  the  people  and  the  careful  and 
safe  loaning  of  these  deposits  to  the  commercial 

30 


466 

aiid  manufacturing  community  by  each  institu- 
tion, all  under  its  general  supervision. 

"  Now  we  come  to  the  next  part  of  the  business 
of  the  system,  and  that  is  issuing  note  circula- 
tion. Does  it  occur  to  you  how  small  a  propor- 
tion of  the  circulation  of  the  United  States  to-day 
the  National  Bank  circulation  is  ?  Let  us  say  it 
is  about  one-fifth  part.  Now  let  us  assume  that 
this  shall  gradually  be  cut  off,  as  undesirable  as 
that  is ;  it  is  gradually  declining,  while  other 
mediums  of  circulation  are  advancing  in  volume. 
We  must  remember  that  money,  actual  money, 
is  about  four  per  cent,  only  of  all  commercial 
transaction ;  credit,  and  credit  alone,  supplies  the 
other  ninety-six  per  cent. 

"  I  do  not  think  any  National  Bank  or  any 
other  bank  should  emit  any  note  or  bill,  for  cir- 
culation without  it  is  secured.  Is  it  not  true  that 
there  are  very  many  National  Banks  in  the 
United  States  to-day  which  do  not  issue  circula- 
tion, even  though  banks  of  a  capital  of  $150,000 
and  above  are  required  to  lodge  but  $50,000  of 
bonds  with  the  Treasury,  and  some  of  these  do 
not  take  out  circulation  on  those  bonds — whereas 
a  small  bank  in  Dakota  is  required  to  lodge  one- 
fourth  part  of  its  capital,  say  if  it  is  $50,000,  it 
is  required  to  lodge  .$12,500  of  bonds  with  the 
Treasury,  whether  it  takes  out  circulation  or  not  ? 
Why  is  it  so  ?  If  they  issue  no  circulation,  then 
no  bonds  should  be  required.  If  large  banks  to- 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  4G7 

day  are  not  issuing  circulation  on  the  small 
amount  of  bonds  required,  say  $50,000,  even 
though  its  capital ^be  $5,000,000  (as  is  the  case), 
then  why  require  one-fourth  part  of  the  capital 
of  a  small  bank  to  be  invested  in  high-priced 
bonds  before  beginning  business  ? 

"  Therefore,  repeal  that  part  of  the  National 
Bank  act  which  requires  a  deposit  of  United 
States  bonds  from  a  bank  which  is  to  receive  no 
circulation.  If  a  bank  choose  to  lodge  bonds, 
then  give  it  the  privilege  of  issuing  circulation 
on  them,  as  of  old." 

The  reduction,  and  now  the  current  purchase, 
of  government  bonds,  which  serve  as  a  basis  of 
circulation  for  National  Bank  notes,  have  driven 
the  bonds  to  such  a  high  premium  that  the  banks 
some  years  ago  began  to  surrender  their  circula- 
tion at  such  a  rate  as  to  seriously  contract  the 
currency  and  excite  apprehension  as  to  the  result. 
But  for  the  issue  of  silver  certificates,  which  .have 
largely  taken  their  place,  a  crisis  would,  in  the 
opinion  of  many  financiers,  have  been  reached 
long  ago.  The  profit  on  circulation  was  so  se- 
riously reduced  by  the  high  price  of  the  bonds,  on 
which  it  is  based,  that  a  number  of  banks  in  New 
York  city  and  elsewhere  surrendered  their  char- 
ters as  National  Banks  and  organized  under  the 
law  as  State  institutions.  They  were  largely  im- 
pelled to  do  this  by  a  desire  to  escape  the  restric- 
tions imposed  by  the  National  Banking  laws  and 


468        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE" 

the  scrutiny  of  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency 
and  the  officials  of  his  department.  The  passage 
of  the  law  forbidding  over-certification  compelled 
a  number  of  them  to  take  this  course.  In  Au- 
gust, 1883,  the  Wall  Street  National  Bank  was 
forced  to  suspend.  An  examination  by  the  gov- 
ernment officials  showed  that  it  had  certified 
checks  of  a  firm  $200,000  in  excess  of  their  bal- 
ance in  cash  and  that  this  was  the  principal 
cause  of  the  bank's  failure.  The  cashier  was  in- 
dicted, but  the  bank  was  wound  up,  went  out  of 
existence,  and  the  intention  of  making  a  terrible 
example  of  the  delinquent  official,  who,  however, 
acted  with  the  approval  of  the  president  and  di- 
rectors, appears  to  have  been  abandoned. 

Touching  the  opposition  shown  in  Congress 
and  elsewhere  to  National  Banking  systems,  ex- 
United  States  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  John 
Jay  Knox  says : 

"  The  system  has  been  of  immense  benefit  to 
the  government  in  its  disbursements  and  in 
funding  temporary  loans  and  also  in  the  refund- 
ing of  its  debt  which,  but  twenty-eight  years  ago, 
amounted  to  $2,845,000,000.  The  National 
Banking  system  rendered  more  valuable  service 
to  the  government  than  any  other  human  agency 
in  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  The 
National  Banks  held  on  the  day  of  resumption 
(January  i,  1879)  125,000,000  of  United  States 
demand  circulating  notes.  Sixty-two  National 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  469 

and  State  banks  in  the  Clearing  House  of  New 
York  unanimously  voted  to  receive  the  legal 
tender  notes  upon  an  equality  with  gold,  and  on 
the  day  of  resumption  the  banks  of  that  city, 
which  held  $40,000,000  of  legal  tender  notes,  did 
not  present  a  dollar  then,  or  subsequently  to  this 
day,  for  payment  in  coin.  As  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  war  the  banks  parted  with  their 
gold  for  the  benefit  of  the  government,  so  at  its 
close  and  upon  the  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ments they  relinquished  the  right  of  again  de- 
manding it,  and  were  well  satisfied  to  receive  in- 
stead the  demand  notes  of  the  government, 
which  are  redeemable  in  coin  upon  presenta- 
tion. Yet,  notwithstanding  these  important  ser- 
vices, the  legislative  department  of  the  govern- 
ment has  never  been  strong  in  its  friendship  for 
this  system.  The  statutes  of  the  government 
contain  very  much  restrictive  and  very  little 
friendly  legislation  toward  the  institutions  which 
were  created  by  its  fiat.  A  few  years  ago,  when 
the  charters  of  most  of  the  banks  were  expiring, 
it  was  only  after  a  long  contest  that  an  act  was 
passed  authorizing  a  renewal  of  their  privileges. 
If  at  any  time  favorable  legislation  has  been 
granted  by  Congress,  it  has  been  given  (  grudg- 
ingly '  and  not  as  a  '  cheerful  giver.* 

"  We  have  heard  much  of  the  surplus  and  the 
necessity  of  the  reduction  of  the  revenue.  Both 
parties  profess  to  be  in  favor  of  such  reduction. 


470  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE  " 

Both  parties  have  proposed  to  reduce  the  tax  on 
the  '  filthy  weed/  and  both  parties  proposed  legis- 
lation granting  relief  to  the  whiskey  manufact- 
urer and  the  whiskey  drinker;  but  not  one  officer 
of  the  government,  nor  one  man  of  either  House, 
has  had  sufficient  courage  to  propose  the  lessen- 
ing or  the  repeal  of  the  tax  on  the  circulation  of 
the  banks,  which  now  amounts  to  less  than 
$1,700,000  and  which  is  the  last  of  the  remain- 
ing 'war  taxes,'  except  the  tax  upon  the  two 
deleterious  articles  referred  to,  which  are  con- 
sidered by  the  leading  civilized  nations  as  the 
most  fit  subjects  for  '  high  taxation.' 

'*  Yet  no  class  of  corporations  since  the  organi- 
zation of  the  government  have  contributed  so 
largely  toward  the  support  of  the  State  and  the 
nation,  and  no  class  of  corporations  have  ever 
been  so  unmercifully  taxed  as  the  banking  in- 
stitutions of  this  country.  Not  only  have  Con- 
gress and  the  different  State  Legislatures  im- 
posed high  rates  of  taxation,  but  the  courts  of 
the  country,  including  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  composed  as  it  is  of  able  jurists 
who  should  be  devoid  of  all  prejudice,  have  con- 
strued the  questions  which  have  been  brought 
before  them  with  rigor  worthy  of  the  bitterest 
enemy  of  the  system.  While  other  corporations 
engaged  in  precisely  the  same  line  of  business 
are  authorized  to  do  business  almost  without 
legislative  restrictions  and  without  taxation,  the 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  .471 

very  highest  rates  that  can  be  imposed  are  placed 
upon  these  institutions,  whose  only  source  of 
profit  is  the  loaning  of  money  at  the  rates  of  in- 
terest fixed  by  the  same  high  authority  which 
imposes  the  taxation.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the 
opposition  of  Congress  and  the  unfriendly  deci- 
sions of  the  courts  and  the  bitter  enemity  of  in- 
dividuals, the  system  has  steadily  and  rapidly 
grown  in  favor,  until  the  institutions  organized 
under  it  from  the  beginning  number  nearly  four 
thousand,  some  of  which  are  located  in  every 
State  and  Territory  as  well  as  in  every  consider- 
able village  in  the  land." 

As  the  steady  reduction  of  the  national  debt 
proceeds,  students  of  financial  questions  are  cast- 
ing about  for  some  substitute  for  the  present  out- 
standing circulation,  which  has  now  dwindled  to 
aboiit  $150,000,000.  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson,  of 
Boston,  the  well-known  statistician  and  economist, 
presents  this  novel  suggestion : 

"  Will  any  Congress  dare  to  reduce  the  revenue 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  leave  any  considerable 
amount  of  debt  unpaid  at  the  end  of  the  present 
century,  whether  it  be  bonded  debt  or  demand 
debt  represented  by  legal  tender  notes  ?  I  sub- 
mit these  as  the  possible  conditions  which  may 
make  it  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  people  of 
this  country  to  invent  a  new  instrument  of  ex- 
change, to  take  the  place  of  the  legal  tender  notes 
and  of  the  bank  notes  secured  by  United  States 


472  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

boncls,  unless  the  whole  circulating  medium  is 
to  consist  either  of  bullion,  or  of  certificates  of 
the  government  backed  by  bullion,  dollar  for 
dollar.  The  tendency  of  events  is  to  cause  the 
withdrawal  from  circulation  of  uncovered  paper, 
to  wit:  National  Bank  notes  and  legal  tender 
notes,  leaving  only  in  circulation  certificates  of 
deposits  of  gold  or  silver,  backed  dollar  for  dol- 
lar by  actual  coin,  and  also  gold  and  silver  coin 
in  specie. 

"  No  position  could  be  stronger  than  this  ;  but 
the  difficulty  will  arise  in  the  fact  that  even  were 
the  annual  revenues  and  expenditures  of  the 
government  equalized,  the  working  of  the  Sub- 
Treasury  Act  in  dealing  with  such  large  sums 
as  now  constitute  the  financial  transactions  of  the 
government  might  seriously  interfere  with  the 
money  market  at  times.  Under  present  con- 
ditions it  is  becoming  apparent  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  the  government  to  adjust  its  transactions 
to  the  ordinary  conditions  of  the  money  market ; 
it  is  also  impossible  for  the  government  to  perform 
the  functions  of  a  bank  of  issue ;  the  tension  is 
now  very  great,  and  the  conditions  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  continued  for  any  length  of  time.  The 
issue  of  certificates  of  deposit  of  gold  or  silver 
would  not  meet  the  varying  conditions  of  sup- 
ply and  demand  for  instruments  of  exchange 
or  circulating  notes,  and  there  will  soon  be  no 
government  bonds  available  as  securities  for 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  473 

bank  notes.  There  is  a  volume  of  other  securities 
in  existence — Railroad,  State  and  City  bonds — 
which  would  form"  an  absolute  security  for  a  circu- 
lating medium  covered  in  part  only  by  a  reserve 
of  actual  coin.  Can  the  arrangements  be  made 
and  the  authority  established  for  a  selection 
among  these  securities  of  those  which  ought  to 
be  made  available  to  secure  the  notes  which 
might  serve  as  instruments  of  exchange  ?  Can 
a  central  bureau,  bank  or  other  form  of  adminis- 
tration be  established  by  a  permissive  act,  with 
branches  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  to 
supply  an  elastic,  safe  and  suitable  paper  currency 
convertible  into  coin  on  demand,  on  a  separate 
foundation  and  under  a  separate  administration 
from  that  under  which  banks  of  deposit  and  dis- 
count may  continue  to  be  organized  ?  " 

The  New  York  banks  are  naturally  the  richest 
and  most  powerful  in  the  country,  and  New 
York,  no  doubt,  always  will  be  the  monetary 
centre  of  this  country.  But  her  absolute  domi- 
nancy  of  the  rest  of  the  country,  which  she  held 
for  so  many  years,  is  passing  away.  The  severest 
blow  to  New  York's  banking  supremacy  perhaps 
was  the  passage  of  the  law  permitting  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  goods  in  bond  direct  to  interior 
points.  Formerly  the  grain  from  western  fields 
was  consigned  to  New  York,  and  the  contract  for 
its  shipment  abroad  made  there.  The  New  York 
banks  were  drawn  upon  for  funds,  and  earned  a 


474  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

eommission  upon  every  bushel  of  wheat  that  went 
out  through  the  Narrows.  In  like  manner,  all 
goods  brought  from  abroad  found  a  resting-plaee 
there,  and  the  duties  were  paid  in  New  York,  and 
it  was  New  York  capital.which  forwarded  them  to 
their  destination. 

But  all  that  has  been  changed.     The  merchant 
in  Chicago  or  St.  Louis  now  buys  his  goods  in 
Manchester  or  Paris  and  consigns  them  direct  to 
his  own  city.     The  West  reaches  out  over  New 
York's  head  and  helps  herself  to  whatever  she 
wants  in  the  Old  World.     So,  too,  with  what  she 
has  to  sell  in  Burope.     A  single  rate  is  made 
from  the  western  prairie  to  the  dock  at  Liverpool. 
Wheat  is    rushed  through   without  the  inter-, 
vention  of  any  New  York  factor.     As  new  towns 
and  cities  have  sprung  up  in  the  interior,  and 
new  manufacturing  centres  have  been  established, 
and  the  mineral  wealth  of  the  country  has  been 
developed,  the  West  has  grown  rich,  and  many 
of  the  banks  in  the  interior  now  carry  lines  of 
deposit  which  would  have  seemed  very  large  to 
the  most  important  institutions  in  the  Bast  a  few 
years  ago.     The  increase  in  the  number  of  "  re- 
serve cities  "  made  by  act  of  Congress  two  years 
ago   was  regarded  at  the   time  as   destined   to 
increase  the  amount  of  funds  in   the   western 
banks  at  the  expense  of  those  on  the  coast.     Up 
to  that  time  there  were   but   sixteen  "  reserve 
cities  "  in  the  United  States.     Bach  of  these  was 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  475 

required  to  keep  on  hand  at  all  times,  in  loanable 
money,  twenty-five  per  cent  of  its  deposits,  while 
every  bank  outside  of  these  cities  was  required 
to  keep  but  fifteen  per  cent,  of  its  deposits  on 
hand.  Any  of  these  fifteen  per  cent,  banks  were 
permitted  to  keep  three-fifths  of  this  fifteen  per 
cent,  in  the  banks  of  any  of  the  sixteen  cities 
referred  to,  and  any  bank  located  in  the  reserve 
cities  might  keep,  if  it  wished  to  do  so,  one-half 
of  its  loanable  money  reserved  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  The  theory  was  that  New  York  was  the 
monetary  centre  of  the  country,  and  the  other 
fifteen  cities  were  the  respective  centres  of  the 
sections  in  which  they  were  located.  The  law, 
moreover,  made  provision  for  counting,  as  a  part 
of  the  required  reserve,  a  portion  of  the  balance 
which  it  was  supposed  the  conditions  of  trade 
would  require  them  to  keep  at  the  local  centres, 
and  at  the  general  centre. 

The  new  law  of  1887  added  a  number  of  other 
cities  to  the  list,  with  regard  to  reserves  which 
New  York  had  held  up  to  that  time.  The 
amendment,  however,  left  money  free  to  seek  its 
natural  channels  and  reservoirs,  assuming  that 
the  drift  of  the  current  had  changed  since  the 
passage  of  the  original  act.  But  experience 
sint^e  has  shown  that  trade  requirements  bring  a 
large  proportion  of  the  reserves  to  New  York, 
and  so  the  new  legislation  has  wrought  compara- 
tively little  change.  The  tendency  to  withdraw 


476        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

funds  from  New  York  under  the  amended  law 
has  been  checked  by  .the  fact  that  as  soon  as  any 
city  takes  on  its  new  dignity  of  a  central  reserve 
point,  it  can  no  longer  keep  a  portion  of  its  re- 
serve in  New  York,  but  must  keep  its  full  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  reserve  in  its  own  vaults  idle. 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis  have  become  full  central 
reserve  cities  like  New  York,  and,  as  higher  in- 
terest rates  rule  in  these  cities  than  in  New 
York,  it  is  natural  that  many  accounts  should  be 
transferred  from  the  latter  city ;  and  this  has 
happened,  as  is  demonstrated  by  Chicago  bank 
returns.  The  drift  of  currency  from  New  York 
last  fall  for  the  purpose  of  moving  the  crops, 
demonstrates  that,  while  t^ie  western  banks  hold 
more  money  for  current  wants,  New  York  must 
still  be  drawn  upon  for  the  large  sums  needed  to 
move  grain  and  cotton  harvests. 

The  frequency  of  paragraphs  in  the  daily 
papers  announcing  the  departure  of  another 
cashier  for  Canada  demonstrates  that  there  is 
something  loose  in  the  methods  of  banking  insti- 
tutions. The  president  of  the  bank  does  not 
give  sufficient  attention  to  the  actual  transaction 
of  business.  He  is  usually  too  familiar  and  easy- 
going with  his  cashier  and  other  important  offi- 
cials. It  is  seldom  that  he  emerges  from*his 
parlor  to  go  behind  the  counter  and  see  what  is 
actually  going  on.  As  for  the  so-called  examina- 
tions made  from  time  to  time  by  directors,  they 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  477 

are  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  every  hundred 
simply  farcical.  The  president  of  the  bank  tells 
the  cashier  some  Jine  morning :  "  Get  things 
straightened  up  now,  Jimmy,  the  directors  are 
coming  to-morrow,  and  we  want  everything  in 
good  shape."  .The  advent  of  the  directors  being 
thus  heralded,  everything  presents  a  fair  ap- 
pearance on  the  occasion  of  their  visit.  They 
chat  and  chaff  each  other,  glance  casually  over 
the  statements  presented  by  the  president,  and 
then  adjourn  to  indulge  in  a  luxurious  luncheon 
on  the  floor  above.  So  ends  their  examination. 

It  is  because  cashiers  are  relieved  from  all 
practical  surveillance  that  so  many  of  them  are 
led  to  ultimately  test  the  climate  of  Canada.  A 
broker,  speaking  to  the  cashier  some  fine  morn- 
ing, s.ays  :  "  By  the  way,  Jones,  Brie  is  going  to 
have  a  big  rise  ;  you'd  better  buy  yourself  a  cou- 
ple of  hundred."  "  Oh,  I  never  speculate,"  says 
Jones ;  "  haven't  got  the  money  to  do  it  with." 
"  That's  all  right,"  says  the  broker,  "  I'll  buy  a 
couple  of  hundred  for  you,  and  if  there's  any 
loss  you  can  make  it  good ;  but  I'm  sure  you'll 
make  money  on  it."  Possibly  the  cashier  ac- 
cedes to  this  proposition,  but  more  frequently,  if 
he  be  a  cautious  and  circumspect  man,  he  uses 
the  broker's  point  in  a  different  way.  He  has 
possibly  seen  the  broker  grow  rich  within  a  few 
years  and  envies  him.  Here  is  a  tempting  op- 
portunity to  make  a  handsome  turn,  for  his  sal- 


478        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEK." 

ary  is  comparatively  small,  and  he  could  put  a 
few  thousand  dollars  to  exceedingly  good  use. 
It  may  be,  then,  that  he  borrows  from  a  friend, 
or  draws  upon  his  own  savings  for  money  which 
he  secretly  deposits  as  margin  with  some  stock 
firm  and  buys  two  hundred  Erie.  It  goes  down. 
His  margin  is  exhausted.  The  brokers  tell  him 
it  will  probably  decline  very  little  more.  But 
they  want  more  margin.  Right  under  his  hands 
are  big  fat  packages  of  bills  of  large  denomina- 
tions. What  shall  he  do  ?  If  his  brokers  sell 
him  out,  the  savings  of  years  are  gone  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye.  If  he  is  a  weak  man,  he 
argues,  "  Why  not  take  a  thousand  dollar  bill  out 
of  this  package  marked  $50,000  ?  It  would  never 
be  missed."  Erie  is  sure  to  go  up  to-morrow, 
when  he  can  withdraw  the  amount  from  his 
brokers  and  put  it  back  in  the  bundle.  He  will 
be  saved  from  every  loss  and  nobody  the  worse 
for  it.  Unfortunately,  things  do  not  turn  out 
that  way.  Erie  goes  lower.  The  thousand  dol- 
lars is  gone.  What  shall  he  do  ?  His  theft,  for 
such  it  now  plainly  has  become,  will  probably  not 
be  discovered  for  some  time.  What  shall  he  do? 
Speculate  in  some  other  stock  and  try  to  make 
up  the  loss.  And  he  does  it.  It  is  useless  to 
pursue  the  theme  any  further.  Grown  more 
desperate  from  day  to  day,  he  plunges  ;  his  losses 
become  too  large  to  be  longer  concealed,  and  one 
day,  fearing  exposure,  he  takes  to  flight,  possibly 


BANKS   AND   BANKING.  479 

carrying  off  additional  funds  of  the  bank.  It 
may  be  that  the  first  money  he  took  was  not  to 
speculate  with  but  to  pay  some  household  bill. 
But  it  leads  to  the  same  result  in  the  end. 

Now,  if  the  president  were  in  the  habit  of 
casually  dropping  around  to  the  cashier's  desk 
and  looking  over  his  cash,  the  initial  step 
in  this  march  to  ruin  would  be  prevented. 
Suppose  the  president  picks  up  hap-hazard  any 
one  of  the  many  packages  of  bills  and  counts 
them  over  to  see  that  they  tally  with  the  total 
marked  on  the  wrapper.  The  knowledge  that  he 
is  liable  to  do  that  at  any  time  will  deter  the 
cashier  from  abstracting  that  first  bill,  and  he  is 
saved  from  the  subsequent  crime  and  disgrace. 

Unfortunately,  dishonesty  in  banks  is  not  con- 
fined to  cashiers.  Many  a  bank  director  amasses 
large  sums  by  means  which  are  quite  as  dis- 
graceful as  embezzlements,  although  they  are 
not  so  harshly  punished.  Mr.  Moneybags,  for 
instance,  is  a  director  in  several  large  banking 
institutions.  He  is  also  in  all  probability  a  very 
heavy  speculator  in  the  stocks  of  railroads  in 
which  he  has  inside  information.  As  director  of 
bank  No.  I  he  sees  that  a  certain  man  has 
pledged  a  block  of  the  stock  of  a  certain  corpora- 
tion as  collateral  security  for  a  heavy  loan.  As 
director  in  bank  No.  2  he  perhaps  learns  that  the 
same  man  is  borrowing  largely  from  that  institu- 
tion and  on  another  block  of  the  same  stock.  It 


480  "  MY  COUNTRY,   'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

is  clear  that  the  speculator  in  question  is  very 
heavily  loaded — probably  carrying  more  of  that 
stock  than  is  prudent.  Anything  which  would 
seriously  depreciate  the  market  value  of  that 
stock  would  probably  force  him  to  throw  over- 
board a  considerable  portion  of  his  holdings. 
The  director  of  easy  conscience  quietly  puts  out 
a  line  of  shorts  in  the  stock  in  question  at  the 
ruling  high  prices.  At  the  next  directors'  meet- 
ing of  bank  No.  i  he  tells  his-  fellow-directors 
that  he  hears  rumors  affecting  Mr.  Speculator's 
credit,  that  he  is  overloaded  with  the  stock  of  the 
road  in  question,  and  suggests  to  the  president 
that  it  would  be  prudent  to  invite  Mr.  Speculator 
to  return  the  money  he  had  borrowed  and  take 
away  his  stocks.  Possibly  he  causes  similar  ac- 
tion to  be  taken  by  the  other  bank  of  which  he 
is  a  director.  Mr.  Speculator,  so  unexpectedly 
called  upon  to  return  very  large  sums  of  money, 
is  embarrassed.  He  is  obliged  to  go  into  the 
market  and  sell  a  large  amount  of  the  stock  in 
question.  The  price  falls  sharply  in  consequence 
and  the  director  covers  his  shorts  at  a  handsome 
profit.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  a  majority  of 
bank  directors  are  above  this  sort  of  thing ;  but 
there  are  bank  directors,  and  not  a  few  of  them 
either,  who  contrive  to  turn  their  official  positions 
to  their  personal  profit. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

OUR  CITIES. 

A  GREAT  city  is  a  great  sore — a  sore  which 
never  can  be  cured. 

The  greater  the  city,  the  greater  the  sore. 

It  necessarily  follows  that  New  York,  being 
the  greatest  city  in  the  Union,  is  the  vilest  sore 
on  our  body  politic. 

If  any  one  doubts  it,  let  him  live  in  New  York 
awhile  and  keep  his  eyes  and  ears  open. 

The  trouble  about  great  cities  is  not  that  they 
have  any  impetus  or  influence  especially  their 
own,  but  that  every  one,  from  the  vilest  all  the 
way  up  to  the  best,  is  compelled  by  circum- 
stances of  city  life  to  often  conduct  his  own  daily 
walk  and  conversation  on  lines  which  are  not 
entirely  natural,  and  which  never  can  be  made  so. 

It  would  be  useless  to  deny  that  in  every  large 
city  may  be  found  a  number  of  the  best  men  and 
women  that  humanity  has  been  able  to  evolve. 
In  the  great  cities  are  found  many  of  our  wisest 
statesmen,  our  greatest  theologians,  our  best 
business  men,  and  a  host  of  lesser,  but  perhaps 
not  less  important  individuals,  whose  influence 

31  481 


482        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

for  good  upon  the  world  is  known  and  recognized 
everywhere.  Nevertheless,  these  are  exceptions 
to  the  rule.  They  are  not  what  they  are  because 
of  the  city ;  they  are  in  the  city  simply  because 
it  gives  them  a  better  centre  and  starting-place 
for  whatever  work  may  be  incumbent  upon  them. 

The  first  deadening  influence  of  the  city  is  that 
no  one  knows  any  one  else.  Of  course  every  one 
has  some  acquaintances,  and  some  people  are 
said  to-be  in  the  best  society  and  to  know  every- 
body, but  "  everybody  "  is  a  relative  term,  and  it 
never  means  as  much  in  the  largest  city  as  it 
does  in  a  village  of  a  thousand  people.  The 
postman  knows  everybody  by  name,  and  so  does 
the  tax-collector  and  the  man  who  brings  you 
your  gas  bill,  but  individual  acquaintance — the 
touch  of  elbow — the  touch  of  nature  that  makes 
the  world  akin,  must  not  be  looked  for  in  any 
large  city  in  the  Union,  least  of  all  in  New  York, 
which  in  spite  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
existence,  is  still  so  new  comparatively  that  al- 
most all  of  its  prominent  citizens  were  born 
somewhere  else.  The  names  of  prominent 
Americans  who  reside  in  New  York  will  natu- 
rally occur  to  any  one,  yet  it  is  quite  safe  to  say 
that  not  one  of  these  gentlemen  know  by  sight 
and  name,  let  alone  by  personal  acquaintance, 
more  than  one  person  in  five  who  reside  within 
a  two-minute  walk  of  his  house. 

An  ex-cabinet  officer,  a  gentleman  whose  varied 


OUR  CITIES.  483 

abilities  have  made  him  known  throughout  the 
civilized  world,  was  once  asked  who  was  his 
neighbor  on  the  right.  The  houses  of  the  two 
men  touched  each  other,  as  two  houses  must,  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  but  the  wise  and  largely 
acquainted  gentleman  was  obliged  to  say  that  he 
did  not  know.  When  the  questioner  informed 
him  that  the  person  occupying  the  adjoining 
house  was  a  notorious  thief  for  whom  the  police 
had  been  long  in  search,  he  was  astonished  and 
shocked.  Nevertheless,  when  he  a  few  months 
afterward  had  his  house  robbed  and  drove  about 
violently  in  a  cab  in  search  of  the  police  captain 
of  his  precinct,  it  took  him  an  hour  to  discover 
that  the  said  police  official  resided  next  door  to 
him  on  the  left.  Afterward  he  was  teased  about 
his  lack  of  knowledge  of  his  neighbors,  and  he 
admitted  frankly  that,  although  he  was  a  man 
without  "  airs,"  and  had  always  made  it  a  custom 
to  fraternize  freely  with  his  fellow-men,  he  knew 
but  two  individuals  who  resided  on  the  same 
block  with  himself,  and  one  of  these  was  his  own 
grocer,  who  occupied  a  store  on  the  corner. 

"  If  this  is  so  with  the  green  tree,  what  must 
it  be  with  the  dry  ?  "  Men  whose  sole  business 
is  to  earn  their  daily  living  are  glad  to  find  a  de- 
cent roof  over  their  heads  anywhere  in  a  large 
city  and  drop  into  the  best  place  they  can  find, 
regardless  of  who  may  be  their  neighbors,  and 
utterly  unable  to  devote  any  time  to  their  neigh- 


484  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

t>ors,  even  should  they  be  fortunate  enough  to 
become  acquainted  with  them.  Neighborhood 
feeling  and  sentiment,  which  is  of  incalculable 
benefit  in  all  communities  not  thickly  settled, 
has  no  influence  whatever  in  a  large  city.  A 
man  may  not  only  live  in  a  house  between  two 
people  of  whom  he  knows  nothing,  but  the  great 
value  of  ground  in  the  city  of  New  York  and  the 
limited  area  has  compelled  the  erection  of  a 
number  of  buildings  known  as  "  flat "  and 
"  apartment "  and  "  tenement "  houses,  and  very 
few  men  know  the  people  who  live  under  the 
same  roof  with  themselves. 

An  amusing  story  is  told  of  a  couple  of  editors, 
who  were  questioned  about  each  other  and  each 
replied  that  he  had  not  the  honor  of  the  other's 
acquaintance.  The  answer  seemed  to  puzzle 
those  who  heard  it,  and  the  subsequent  remarks 
elicited  a  demand  for  an  explanation,  when  it  was 
learned  that  these  two  men,  members  of  the  same 
profession,  and  both  entirely  reputable  citizens, 
had  been  residing  in  the  same  building  for  six 
months ;  but  as  one  was  at  home  only  by  day- 
light, and  the  other  only  at  night,  they  had 
never  chanced  to  meet  under  their  own  roof. 

Of  course,  if  such  ignorance  may  come  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  events  regarding  entirely  re- 
spectable people,  cities  must  form  an  admirable 
hiding-place  for  disreputable  and  dangerous 
characters  of  all  sorts.  The  time  was  when  a 


OUR   CITIES.  485 

man  detected  in  crime  thought  it  advisable  to  run 
away  from  a  large  city.  But  nowadays  he  knows 
better.  He  stays  -as  near  home  as  possible,  know- 
ing that  there  are  numberless  opportunities  for 
keeping  himself  entirely  out  of  sight  and  out  of 
mind  of  every  one  who  ever  knew  him.  De- 
faulters who  have  a  great  deal  of  money  in  their 
pockets,  and  also  those  who  have  none  at  all,  oc- 
casionally find  it  desirable  to  go  to  Canada  or 
Europe,  bnt  the  rogue  who  has  two  or  three 
thousand  dollars  to  spare  knows  perfectly  well 
that  by  keeping  in-doors  in  New  York  he  can  ab- 
solutely escape  detection.  The  police  may  know 
him  by  sight,  but  the  keepers  of  boarding-houses 
do  not,  neither  do  tjieir  servants  ;  and  so  long  as 
he  will  remain  in  his  room,  have  his  meals  sent 
to  him,  and  take  his  exercise  and  outings  only 
after  dark  in  such  disguise  as  any  one  can  im- 
provise at  very  short  notice,  he  is  entirely  safe 
from  detection.  One  of  the  bank  defaulters  who 
ranks  as  one  of  the  most  successful  in  the  annals 
of  such  crime  in  the  city  of  New  York,  was  looked 
for  in  Canada  and  all  over  Europe  for  eight 
months,  and  finally  by  accident  was  discovered  in 
a  boarding-house  only  two  squares  away  from  his 
original  place  of  residence. 

Criminals  when  not  actually  plying  their  vo- 
cation generally  go  to  large  cities,  for  two  rea- 
sons ;  first,  to  spend  their  ill-gotten  gains  in  pleas- 


480  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

lire,  and  secondly,  that  as  a  rule  cities  are  the 
best  hiding-places. 

For  the  same  reason  that  causes  desperate 
criminals  to  hide  in  the  larger  cities,  all  persons 
who  have  in  their  lives  any  features  which  they 
wish  to  conceal,  find  the  cities  preferable  places 
of  residence.  One  man  of  large  property  and 
some  national  prominence  died  a  few  years  ago  in 
the  city  in  which  he  had  been  doing  business  for 
thirty  years,  and  after  he  died  it  was  discovered 
that  he  had  nine  wives  living,  from  no  one  of 
whom  had  he  ever  separated  through  the  for- 
mality of  a  divorce.  Each  of  these  nine  women 
imagined  herself  his  own  and  only  wife.  Any 
man,  who  has  formed  an  undesirable  alliance  in 
business  or  in  love  or  otherwise,  knows  that  with 
very  little  trouble  he  can  hide  all  traces  of  his 
mischief  by  going  to  a  large  city  to  live. 

An  inevitable  consequence  is  that  the  number 
of  able  but  undesirable  characters  who  exist  in 
the  cities,  having  left  other  places  for  the  good 
of  those  who  are  left  behind,  have  a  depressing 
influence  upon  the  moral  atmosphere  of  other 
classes  of  residents.  Men  meet  men  whom  they 
never  saw  before,  and  whom  they  are  obliged  to 
judge  entirely  by  appearance  and  professions. 
It  is  the  same  in  business  as  it  is  in  society. 
Not  a  year  passes  in  which  some  adventurer  does 
not  impose  himself  for  a  time  upon  the  best 
society  of  New  York  and  of  other  cities,  And 


OUR   CITIES.  487 

although  it  would  seem  that  his  antecedents 
might  easily  be  discovered  upon  the  basis  of  such 
information  as  he  may  feel  obliged  to  give  about 
himself,  the  fact  remains  that  society  is  "  taken 
in "  quite  as  often  as  banks  and  business  men 
and  private  individuals.  Several  years  ago  a 
notorious  scamp,  who  had  been  in  several  State- 
prisons,  came  to  New  York,  organized  a  business 
firm,  took  a  large  store,  was  discovered  in  the 
course  of  time  to  be  carrying  on  operations  closely 
akin  to  stealing,  and  when  his  record  was  thor- 
oughly searched  and  sifted  by  the  police,  it  was 
discovered  that  his  victims  were  principally  the 
largest  wholesale  establishments  in  the  city  of 
New  York — establishments  which  employed  a 
number  of  men  for  the  sole  purpose  of  investi- 
gating the  character  and  resources  of  any  one 
applying  to  them  for  credit  or  for  any  business 
relations  beyond  ordinary  purchases  for  cash. 

These  smart  scamps,  who  are  a  hundred  times 
as  numerous  as  the  newspaper  disclosures  would 
lead  the  public  to  imagine,  have  a  terribly  de- 
moralizing influence  upon  the  young  men  who 
flock  to  the  city  from  all  parts  of  the  rural  dis- 
tricts as  well  as  upon  those  who  are  brought  up 
in  the  city.  To  see  a  rascal  succeed  has  a  bad 
effect  upon  any  one.  Even  the  most  righteous 
man  will  mournfully  quote  from  Scripture  that 
"  the  wicked  shall  flourish  as  the  green  bay 
tree;"  that  "their  eyes  stand  out  with  fatness; 


488  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

they  have  more  than  heart  can  wish,"  where  the 
respectable  man  has  to  lie  awake  nights  to  devise 
ways  and  means  of  paying  his  coal-bill  and 
avoiding  trouble  with  his  landlord.  Business 
enterprises  containing  any  amount  of  promise 
are  organized,  forced  upon  the  public  by  smart 
schemers  of  whom  no  one  knows  anything,  and 
all  of  them  succeed  in  obtaining  a  great  deal  of 
money.  When  discovery  comes,  as  of  course  it 
must  come  sooner  or  later,  the  villain  never 
makes  restitution  to  any  extent  and  is  never  ade- 
quately punished  for  his  crime.  So,  the  citizen 
who  pretends  to  be  respectable,  but  always  has  an 
eye  out  for  the  main  chance,  is  moved  by  such 
examples  to  see  whether  he  cannot  do  something 
sharp  himself,  and  get  away  before  the  crash 
comes. 

Society  in  large  cities  is  said  to  be  exclusive. 
It  must  be,  for  its  own  protection.  It  cannot 
possibly  be  too  exclusive.  People  with  and  with- 
out letters  of  introduction  succeed  in  forming 
acquaintances,  becoming  part  of  one  or  another 
social  set,  even  get  into  the  churches,  open  bank 
accounts,  go  into  business,  and  a  year  or  two 
afterward  are  discovered  to  have  antecedents 
which  would  make  a  person  of  ordinary  respecta- 
bility hold  up  his  hands  in  horror.  Such  occur- 
rences  have  been  so  common,  and  the  individuals 
concerned  have  so  often  been  not  only  men  but 
that  the  exclusiveness  of  city  society 


OUR   CITIES.  489 

extends  even  to  the  churches  and  school-rooms. 
The  half-grown  child  attending  a  public  or  pri- 
vate school  is  warned  against  making  any  ac- 
quaintances whatever  except  with  the  children 
of  families  whom  its  parents  already  know.  The 
member  of  a  church  may  have  a  stranger  shown 
into  his  pew  again  and  again  on  Sundays,  and 
extend  to  him  the  courtesy  of  an  open  prayer- 
book  or  hymnal,  but  in  self-defence  he  is  com- 
pelled to  stop  at  that.  The  cordiality,  freedom 
of  speech,  and  general  recognition,  which  is  the 
custom  in  small  towns  and  in  rural  districts 
throughout  the  world,  is  denied  the  prudent  in- 
habitant of  a  city,  no  matter  how  hearty  his 
inclination  may  be  to  extend  a  welcoming  hand 
to  every  one  whom  he  may  meet.  Young  men 
entering  society,  young  women  seen  for  the  first 
time  in  some  social  circle,  are  at  first  regarded 
very  much  as  a  stranger  entering  a  mining  town 
in  the  West,  where  it  is  supposed  no  one  goes 
unless  he  has  good  reason  to  get  away  from  his 
original  home. 

Nowhere  in  the  world  are  there  more  charitable 
hearts  with  plenty  of  money  behind  them  than 
in  large  cities,  yet  nowhere  else  is  there  more 
suffering.  Your  next-door  neighbor  may  be 
starving  to  death  and  you  not  know  anything 
about  it.  You  know  nothing  of  his  comings  and 
nothing  of  his  goings  ;  he  knows  nothing  of  you, 
if  ke  has  any  spirit  whatever,  and  any 


490  c/  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THKK." 

respect  for  himself,  he  would  rather  apply  to  the 
police  or  to  the  authorities  in  charge  of  the  poor 
than  to  the  people  living  nearest  to  him.  When- 
ever the  newspapers  of  a  city  make  some  startling 
disclosure  of  destitution  and  suffering  a  number 
of  purses  open  instantly,  and  frequently  some  of 
the  sufferers  have  received  gifts  from  their  own 
landlords,  who  actually  did  not  know  of  the  name 
and  existence  of  the  tenant.  A  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  city  of  New  York  has  long 
been  known  as  a  frequent  and  prompt  visitor  in 
person  to  all  individuals  reported  as  in  destitute 
condition  and  deserving  of  immediate  assistance, 
yet  he  said  once  to  his  own  pastor,  and  to  his 
own  physician  also,  who  chanced  to  be  present, 
that  the  great  sorrow  of  his  life  was,  that  he  was 
utterly  incapacitated  by  the  conditions  of  city  life 
from  discovering  for  himself  the  whereabouts  of 
individuals  whom  he  would  gladly  assist  with  his 
pocket  and  his  counsel. 

As  nobody  knows  anybody  in  the  large  cities, 
what  is  called  the  floating  population  have  every- 
thing their  own  way,  each  one  for  himself.  Busi- 
ness wrongs  that  would  not  be  tolerated  for  an 
instant  in  a  smaller  community  are  perpetrated 
with  entire  impunity  in  the  large  cities.  The 
poorer  classes  have  no  strong  friend  or  acquaint- 
ance to  complain  to.  Were  they  in  a  smaller 
place  they  would  know  some  one ;  probably  they 
would  know  everybody  of  any  consequence,  and 


OUR   CITIES.  491 

also  "be  known,  and  could  quickly  bring  public 
sentiment  to  their  aid,  but  in  a  large  city  there 
is  no  such  opportunity.  The  only  hope  of  the 
oppressed  is  in  the  courts,  which  always  are  over- 
crowded with  business,  and  can  give  very  little 
time  to  any  one,  and  in  the  press,  which  is  also 
overcrowded  with  work,  and  should  not  be  charged 
with  this  sort  of  responsibility. 

Temptation  will  exist  wherever  humanity  is 
found,  but  for  a  concentration  of  all  temptations, 
graded  to  suit  all  capacities  of  human  weakness, 
the  great  city  stands  pre-eminent.  There  is  no 
vice  that  cannot  be  committed  in  it — committed 
with  reasonable  assurance  that  it  will  not  be  dis- 
covered. A  man  whose  habits  are  apparently 
correct,  who  has  no  known  vices,  whose  daily 
manner  with  his  fellow-men  seems  all  that  it 
should  be,  may  with  entire  safety  change  his 
manner  at  night,  and  re-enact  the  drama  of  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.  It  is  worse  than  that. 
He  not  only  may,  but  in  a  great  many  instances 
he  does.  Any  man  whose  business  compels  him 
to  know  a  number  of  persons  by  sight,  and  whose 
hours  of  duty  keep  him  out-of-doors  in  the  "  wee 
sma'  hours,"  occasionally  sees  things  which  stag- 
ger him.  He  sees  citizens  of  good  repute  in 
company  which  any  village  loafer  would  be 
ashamed  to  be  seen  in  by  his  own  acquaintances. 
He  sees  policemen  taking  charge  of  men  who  by 
daylight  the  police  of  their  own  locality  regard 


492        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

with  extreme  respect.  He  sees  the  high  and  the 
low  mingle  on  the  same  level,  and  from  their 
manners  he  would  not  be  able  to  know  one  from 
the  other.  Newspapers  are  sometimes  blamed 
for  publishing  sensational  stories,  which  reminds 
me  of  a  remark  once  made  by  the  famous  Parson 
Brownlow,  of  East  Tennessee.  He  was  called 
to  account  one  day  for  using  profane  language, 
he  being  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  "If  you 
knew,"  said  he,  "  how  many  cuss  words  I  hold 
in,  you  would  not  blame  me  for  the  few  I  let 
out."  If  the  newspapers  were  to  print  all  the 
sensational  stories  which  come  to  them  they 
would  have  to  double  the  size  of  their  sheets,  and 
still  they  would  have  no  room  for  any  decent 
news  whatever. 

I  repeat  it,  great  cities  are  great  sores,  and  it 
is  to  the  interest  of  every  one  that  they  should 
in  some  way  be  extracted  from  the  body  politic 
and  be  allowed  and  compelled  to  maintain  a  sep- 
arate existence.  I  know  that  the  parallel  is  not 
exact,  but  such  things  have  been  done  in  some 
cases.  The  city  is  a  millstone  about  the  neck  of 
the  State  in  almost  all  cases.  Whatever  may  be 
the  political  preference  of  the  reader,  he  must  ad- 
mit the  fact  that  the  single  city  of  New  York  po- 
litically dominates  the  State,  although  containing 
only  about  one-fourth  of  the  population,  and  that 
the  expressed  will  and  intention  of  a  large  major- 
ity of  the  voters  of  the  State  outside  the  metrop- 


OUR  CITIES.  493 

olis  is  steadily  neutralized  by  a  great  majority 
composed  principally  of  ignorant  persons  who  in- 
fest a  great  city.  The  evil  has  impressed  itself 
strongly  upon  the  minds  of  publicists  and  jour- 
nalists of  all  degrees  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
suggestion  has  often  been  made  that  the  city 
should  be  allowed  a  separate  organization  by  and 
in  itself,  somewhat  analogous  to  the  position 
once  held  by  the  free  cities  of  Germany.  In 
such  case,  whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  political 
results,  the  fact  would  remain  that  each  portion 
of  the  divided  community  would  have  its  own 
will  distinctly  expressed,  whereas  at  present  one 
neutralizes  the  other.  New  York  has  been  mak- 
ing the  attempt  for  years  by  a  series  of  special 
governments  by  commission,  the  origin  being  in 
special  enactments  by  the  legislature  at  Albany. 
The  results  have  not  been  successful,  but  the 
trouble  was  not  lack  of  principle  in  the  enact- 
ments, but  in  the  individuals  selected  to  carry  on 
the  experiment.  The  suggestion  however  con- 
tinues to  be  made.  Similar  plans  have  been  men- 
tioned regarding  some  other  large  cities  of  the 
United  States.  And  it  is  not  impossible  that  all 
of  them  may  be  granted  "  home  rule "  in  the 
strictest  sense,  and  that  the  States  at  large  will 
thus  escape  the  city  rule  to  which  at  present 
they  are  being  subjected. 


494  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE  " 

THE   DARKER   SIDE. 

What  already  has  been  said  about  the  evils  of 
city  life  and  influence  may  seem  bad  enough,  but 
there  is  another  side  that  is  worse.  Crime  and 
license  affect  the  human  mind  strongly  when 
brought  before  it  as  the  cause  of  a  large  amount 
of  irregularity,  but  the  public  heart  is  more 
quickly  and  firmly  impressed  by  the  knowledge 
of  suffering. 

The  amount  of  suffering  that  exists  in  all 
large  cities  merely  through  enforced  conditions 
of  life  passes  power  of  expression.  No  one  has 
ever  yet  been  able  to  do  the  subject  justice. 
Many  who  have  worked  among  the  poor  have 
lost  life  and  hope,  and  mind  itself,  in  contempla- 
tion of  the  suffering  and  sorrow  which  they  have 
witnessed  and  been  unable  to  relieve.  To  attempt 
to  care  for  the  poor  of  a  large  city  affects  one  very 
much  like  an  effort  to  pour  water  into  a  sieve ; 
the  demand  is  continual,  yet  nothing  seems  to  be 
effected. 

Almost  everywhere  outside  of  the  cities  it  is 
assumed  at  the  beginning  that  those  who  suffer 
through  their  poverty  in  large  cities  are  either 
indolent  or  vicious.  A  more  cruel  mistake  could 
not  possibly  be  made.  There  are  many  idlers  in 
any  large  city,  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  work  hard  to  keep 
soul  and  body  together.  The  largest  gathering 


OUR   CITIES.  495 

of  fellers  that  any  occurrence  can  bring  togethef 
does  not  equal  in  numbers  the  procession  which 
one  may  see  in  five  minutes'  time  on  any  thor- 
oughfare during  regular  hours  of  going  to  work 
or  returning  home. 

A  full  half  of  the  population  of  the  largest 
city  in  the  Union  reside  in  tenement  houses. 
The  tenement  house  at  best  is  unfit  for  human 
residence  if  the  people  who  inhabit  it  expect  to 
enjoy  good  health,  and  if  the  children  .who  are 
part  of  almost  every  family  are  expected  to  grow 
and  develop  properly  in  body  and  soul.  Yet  the 
bald  fact  is  that  more  than  half  a  million  of  the 
inhabitants  of  this  country  live  on  several  square 
miles  of  land  in  one  single  city.  Land  is  costly, 
builders'  work  is  expensive;  the  cheapest-built 
houses  cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  conse- 
quently the  space  in  them  must  be  divided  and 
subdivided  with  great  skill  and  detail  if  the 
poorer  classes  are  to  find  habitation  at  all. 

Almost  all  of  this  half  million  people  are 
honest,  hard  workers.  The  heads  of  families  are 
among  the  first  to  go  to  work  in  the  morning  and 
among  the  last  to  go  to  their  homes  at  night. 
They  are  those  who  work  for  the  smallest  wages 
and  do  the  hardest  work.  They  and  their  families 
need  just  as  much  food  to  support  life  as  any  of 
the  well-to-do  portion  of  the  population.  But  in 
any  large  city  the  necessities  of  life  are  costly, 
and  they  are  particularly  so  in  our  largest  city. 


496         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE;." 

The  wages  of  an  ordinary  mechanic  or  working- 
man  will  barely  pay  the  rent  of  the  cheapest 
apartment  and  buy  food  for  five  people.  Clothing 
must  be  left  to  chance,  luxury  must  be  unthought- 
of,  and  the  only  possible  relaxation  is  that  to  be 
found  in  the  streets  or  at  places  where  entertain- 
ment is  free. 

More  heroism  is  displayed  in  some  of  these 
humble  homes  than  ever  was  witnessed  on  any 
battle-field  of  which  the  world  has  knowledge. 
The  wolf  at  the  door  is  a  thousand  times  worse 
foe  than  the  enemy  on  the  frontier.  The  soldier 
always  has  glory  to  look  to  in  case  he  dies.  The 
suffering  laborer  dies,  if  die  he  must,  in  abject 
misery  at  the  thought  of  his  family's  future. 
Whatever  his  health,  however  numerous  his  dis- 
comforts, however  small  his  pay,  he  must  work 
and  go  on  working,  or  his  family  must  starve. 
He  has  no  friends  who  are  rich  or  influential ; 
if  he  had,  he  would  not  be  a  poor  working-man ; 
his  only  friends  are  those  of  his  own  kind,  and 
while  almost  any  of  them  would  in  time  of  neces- 
sity share  their  last  loaf  with  him,  there  are  times 
when  the  most  friendly  of  them  have  no  loaf  to 
share.  A  day  or  two  of  sickness  of  the  head  of 
the  family  imposes  a  stern  chase  which  lasts  long 
and  costs  frightfully.  The  death  of  a  member 
of  their  family  means  absolute  ruin.  This  would 
seem  bad  enough,  but  there  is  worse  behind  it. 
The  necessity  of  sending  the  remains  of  the 


OtiR  CITIES.  497 

loveoTone  to  the  burial  ground'  cf  the  paupers  is 
one  of  the  terrible  experiences  which  are  very 
common  in  large  cities.  Some  of  them  cannot 
afford  even  the  small  time  necessary  to  do  that 
much  ;  so,  with  many  tears  and  prayers,  perhaps 
sometimes"  with  many  curses  upon  the  hard  luck 
to  which  fate  or  fortune  has  reduced  them,  the 
remains  are  quietly  carried  to  the  river-side  at 
night  and  there  dropped  from  sight,  though  not 
from  memory.  A  few  years  ago  a  newspaper  at- 
tache, attending  one  of  the  large  excursions  given 
by  charitable  persons  to  children  of  the  poor, 
overheard  a  mother  and  daughter  talking  about 
a  sick  babe  which  the  daughter  was  to  carry  on 
board  the  boat.  The  mother  could  not  go.  She 
had  to  work  or  the  family  must  starve.  She  took 
her  child  in  her  arms,  again  and  again  kissed  it, 
cried  over  it,  and_  then  began  a  skilful  conversa- 
tion with  her  daughter  leading  up  to  the  possi- 
bility and  advisability,  in  case  of  death  during 
the  trip,  of  dropping  the  little  darling's  remains 
overboard,  saying  that  the  deep,  clean  sea  was  a 
cleaner  burial  place  than  the  dark  ground  in  the 
cemetery.  The  child  listened  with  wondering 
face  and  finally  agreed  with  her  mother.  As  for 
the  reporter,  he  was  so  horrified  that  he  was 
utterly  unfit  for  work  for  a  year  after,  although 
he  imagined  himself  hardened  to  scenes  of  suf- 
fering. 

The  wildest  imagination  cannot  possibly  exceed 


498  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE  " 

some  actual  facts  of  tenement-house  life.  The 
story  has  been  told  again  and  again,  until  there 
is  no  novelty  in  it,  of  families  crowded  together 
so  closely  that  all  the  decencies  of  life  were  for- 
gotten, because  it  was  impossible  to  observe  them, 
of  bad  associations  formed,  of  children  wilting 
and  v/eakening  unto  death  because  the  air  they 
breathed  was  unfit  to  support  life,  of  food  pur- 
chased at  cheaper  and  cheaper  prices  until  that 
finally  used  was  little  better  than  poison  to  those 
who  ate  it,  of  poverty  induced  by  payments  de- 
ferred, of  the  wretchedness  and  semi-starvation 
that  exist  through  some  of  the  long  strikes  of 
some  of  the  laboring  classes  ;  but  none  of  it  fully 
equals  the  truth.  There  are  happy,  virtuous, 
well-fed,  well-clothed  families  in  tenement  houses, 
and  it  is  probably  fair  to  say  that  these  are  per- 
haps in  the  majority,  but  the  minority  is  so 
numerous  that  the  heart  is  appalled  at  contem- 
plating it.  Out  of  their  wretched  homes  these 
people  cannot  go.  There  is  no  other  place  for 
them.  While  a  man  and  his  wife  are  young  and 
before  they  have  children,  they  may  roam  about 
if  they  choose  as  tramps  in  pleasant  summer 
weather,  until  some  happy  chance  finds  work  for 
one  or  the  other  in  the  rural  districts.  But  once 
anchored  in  the  city  by  a  family  of  children,  and 
the  opportunities  of  the  laboring  man  of  small 
income  to  ever  change  his  condition  are  almost 
nothing.  Some  men  say  that  the  influence  of 


OUR  CITIES.  499 

religion  is  declining.  The  strongest  refutation, 
and  an  absolute  one,  of  this  statement  is  that  the 
miserable  people  in  large  cities  do  not  arise  in 
frenzied  mobs  and  destroy  everything  which  they 
cannot  steal.  The  long,  patient  and  then  de- 
spairing struggle  against  the  inevitable  is  enough 
to  reduce  any  man  to  frenzy,  were  it  not,  as  Long- 
fellow says,  that  poverty 

"Crushes  into  dumb  despair 
One-half  the  human  race." 

It  nevertheless  is  true  that  as  large  a  propor- 
tion of  these  people  as  of  any  other  class  in  the 
city  are  religious  by  instinct,  training  and  prac- 
tice. The  churches  which  they  attend  are  more 
crowded  on  Sundays  than  those  of  the  better 
classes,  and  the  painter  who  wishes  to  find  models 
of  patience  and  resignation  and  determination  can 
find  them  better  at  the  doors  of  these  churches 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

Still  the  misery  goes  on.  It  increases.  The 
tenement-house  population  grows  larger  and 
larger  every  year.  The  accommodations  become 
smaller  because  the  tendency  of  the  rents  of  such 
property  is  steadily  upward.  There  is  no  way 
of  escape.  Little  by  little  the  parents  of  the 
family  of  young  children  prevail  upon  themselves 
to  allow  children  to  help  support  the  family. 
There  is  no  cruelty  about  it  in  the  intention  of 
the  parents.  The  children  have  little  enough  to 


500        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE" 

interest  them.  Their  parents  are  too  busy  to  talk 
with  them  or  answer  any  of  their  questions. 
During  the  day  the  children  are  in  the  way,  and 
to  the  father  and  mother  comes  the  suggestion 
that  if  the  entire  family  were  at  work  together 
there  might  be  a  closer  family  life.  The  children 
are  quite  willing  to  take  part  in  whatever  their 
parents  are  doing.  Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  keep 
them  from  doing  so.  So  the  transition  for  chil- 
dren from  utter  indolence  to  child  labor  is  very 
short  and  easy. 

There  are  a  great  many  businesses  in  a  large 
city  in  which  children  may  help  their  parents. 
Among  these,  the  most  prominent  probably  will 
be  found  among  the  clothing  manufacturers 
and  the  makers  of  that  much-abused  article,  the 
tenement-house  cigar.  It  isn't  necessary  for  the 
reader  to  be  frightened  at  the  idea  that  cigars  are 
made  in  tenement-houses,  because  a  respectable 
man  or  woman  with  their  children  are  less  likely 
to  have  any  habits  or  surroundings  which  will 
make  tne  tobacco  leaf  deleterious  than  the  work- 
man in  any  famous  factory  in  Havana.  There 
are  diseases  among  the  operatives  in  Cuban 
cigar  factories  of  which  the  less  said  the  better. 
Whatever  other  ailments  there  may  be  in  tene- 
ment-house life,  these  particular  diseases  are  not 
to  be  found  there.  Nevertheless  the  idea  of  a 
man  and  woman  and  several  children  working 
ten  or  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day  in  a  room 


OUR   CITIES.  501 

ten  feet  square  with  a  lot  of  decaying  vegetable 
matter — which  is  exactly  what  leaf  tobacco  in  the 
course  of  manufacture  really  is— to  pollute  the 
atmosphere  about  them,  is  not  a  pleasant  thing. 
Tobacco  has  powerful  medicinal  qualities,  most 
of  which  are  of  a  poisonous  nature.  A  small 
amount  of  nicotine,  the  essential  principle  of  to- 
bacco, has  been  powerfully  effective  either  as  a 
narcotic,  or  stimulant,  or  a  germicide.  The  effect 
upon  persons  who  handle  it  incessantly  during  a 
full  half  of  every  day  can  consequently  be  imag- 
ined. Every  one  in  the  room  becomes  irritable 
unless  the  food  supply  is  abundant  and  care- 
fully selected;  every  one  finally  becomes  ex- 
tremely nervous.  Men  and  women  do  not  well 
endure  the  life  of  tobacco  manufacturers.  To 
children  the  constant  handling  of  the  leaf  is 
frequently  poisonous.  Nevertheless,  a  certain 
amount  of  money  ought  to  be  earned  every  day 
by  the  family ;  the  father  and  mother  are  not 
able  to  do  it ;  the  children  help ;  the  family  earn- 
ings are  as  much  for  the  child's  sake  as  for  the 
parents,  and  so  the  work  goes  on. 

In  the  manufacture  of  clothing  the  details,  so 
far  as  they  affect  human  life,  are  not  so  injurious. 
But  one  commercial  result  is  always  perceptible 
in  a  short  time.  Those  operatives  who  can  avail 
themselves  of  child  labor  are  enabled  to  underbid 
their  associates,  who  are  also  their  competitors. 
Consequently  it  is  a  very  short  time  before  the 


502  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

income  of  the  family  is  no  larger  than  it  already 
had  been,  while  the  number  of  persons  occupied 
in  earning  it  has  doubled  and  perhaps  trebled. 

Just  think  a  moment  what  all  this  really  im- 
plies. A  number  of  people  are  excluded  from 
all  possibility  of  exercise  or  recreation  and  excit- 
ing themselves  to  the  utmost  to  accomplish  a 
given  amount  of  work  in  a  specified  time.  Chil- 
dren are  quicker  than  grown  people  to  respond 
to  any  exciting  influence,  and  the  most  enthusi- 
astic workers  in  tenement-house  rooms  will 
always  be  found  to  be  the  children.  Sometimes 
this  amuses  the  parents,  occasionally  it  interests 
them,  but  more  often  it  is  extremely  pathetic. 
To  see  a  child  at  an  early  age  absorbed  in  the 
details  of  the  battle  of  life  would  horrify  any  one 
of  us,  yet  100,000  children  of  this  kind  can  be 
found  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  them  can  be  found  in  any  one  of  forty 
or  fifty  specified  blocks. 

There  is  only  one  end  to  this  sort  of  thing. 
Persistent  stimulation  and  entire  lack  of  recrea- 
tion or  exercise  must  have  a  debasing  and  dan- 
gerous effect  upon  any  physique.  Much  more 
must  this  be  the  case  regarding  children.  Boys 
and  girls  are  not  driven  to  work  as  they  were  in 
England  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  They  are  not 
flogged  if  they  do  not  accomplish  a  certain 
amount  of  work  in  a  given  time,  as  they  used  to 
be  under  the  good  old  English  customs.  But  they 


OUR   CITIES.  503 

are  just  as  thoroughly  destroyed,  physically  and 
mentally,  as  if  they  were  under  task-masters 
who  were  not  their  own  parents. 

Children  in  the  country  frequently  work  very 
hard.  A  farmer's  life  is  hard  at  best,  and  be- 
tween necessity  and  sympathy  his  children  early 
learn  to  take  part  in  their  father's  endeavors. 
They  rise  early  in  the  morning  and  w,ork  per- 
haps quite  late  in  the  night,  but  they  are  in 
pure  air  even  while  they  are  at  work.  They 
have  an  abundance  of  food  and  they  always  see 
something  before  them,  just  as  their  parents  do. 
Perhaps  it  is  that  there  is  a  war  abroad  and  the 
price  of  wheat  will  probably  go  up  a  few  cents 
a  bushel.  Or  a  railroad  is  coming  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  farm,  and  acres  which  have  been  devoted 
to  common  crops  and  pasture  are  expected  sud- 
denly to  attain  to  the  dignity  of  town  lots. 
There  are  evening  festivities  in  which  all  the 
children  take  part,  and  there  is  also  the  great 
and  comforting  and  uplifting  American  senti- 
ment that  each  one  of  them  is  as  good  as  any 
one  of  their  richest  neighbors,  and  the  fact  that 
they  may  live  in  a  poorly-built  house  and  not 
wear  quite  as  good  clothes  on  Sunday  as  some 
of  their  associates  can  always  be  overlooked 
in  view  of  the  possibilities  of  the  near  future. 
But  before  the  children  of  the  poor  in  the  large 
cities  there  is  no  prospect  whatever  of  advance- 
ment or  pleasure  or  recreation.  The  old  dull 


501  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

grind  goes  on  day  by  day.  While  every  one  is 
well  and  every  one  is  at  work,  the  family  probably 
has  enough  to  eat  and  has  a  roof  over  its  head  ; 
and  to  that  extent  it  can  congratulate  itself, 
for  some  of  their  acquaintances  and  neighbors 
are  not  so  well  off.  But  the  first  day  that 
sickness  comes  into  the  family  the  entire  aspect 
of  things  changes.  The  work  must  go  on  or 
there  will  be  nothing  to  live  on  at  the  end  of 
the  week.  The  invalid  may  be  put  to  bed  in 
one  of  the  little  closets  which  are  dignified  by 
the  name  of  rooms,  but  the  adult  members  of 
the  family  must  continue  to  work,  and  so  must 
all  who  are  old  enough  to  assist.  If  there  is 
a  sewing-machine  in  the  room  it  must  go  on 
clicking,  no  matter  if  some  member  of  the  family 
is  dying.  There  is  no  lack  of  sympathy,  no 
lack  of  affection,  no  lack  of  longing;  but  all 
these  put  together  do  not  take  the  place  of  proper 
medical  attendance,  pure  air  and  good  food.  If 
in  any  single  town  of  the  United  States  the  death 
rate  were  as  large  as  it  is  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  the  best  citizens  would  pack  up  their  things 
and  run  away,  no  matter  at  what  cost.  But 
New  York  can  lose  thirty  or  forty  of  every 
thousand  of  its  inhabitants  every  year,  and  the 
only  comment  of  those  who  know  best  about  it 
is  that  it  is  a  mercy  of  heaven  that  the  loss  is  no 
greater. 

The  customary  way  of  city  people,  in  avoiding 


OUR  CITIES.  505 

responsibility  and  deep  thought  on  this  subject, 
consists  in  saying  that  the  people  who  live  in 
this  way  are  of  low  organizations  any  way,  and 
that  they  can  exist  and  flourish  and  grow  fat 
amid  surroundings  which  would  kill  any  decent 
person.  There  is  some  truth  in  this  so  far  as 
certain  low  organizations  are  concerned.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  there  is  no  race,  sex,  nation- 
ality or  creed  among  the  very  poor  in  the  large 
city.  All  of  them  are  people  who  either  were 
born  very  poor  or  who,  having  been  reduced  to 
poverty,  are  endeavoring  to  make  the  best  of  their 
lot.  There  are  Americans  of  good  name  and 
good  family  now  serving  in  the  commoner  me- 
chanical capacities  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and 
only  a  little  while  ago  it  was  discovered  that  the 
wife  of  a  gallant  Major-General,  who  served  the 
United  States  faithfully  during  the  late  unpleas- 
antness, was  "  living  out "  as  a  domestic  servant. 
It  is  not  a  result  of  poverty,  misfortune,  sickness 
or  anything  of  the  kind.  All  those  horrors  are 
the  results,  first  of  all,  of  city  life,  of  living 
where  no  one  knows  his  own  neighbors  and  where 
the  person  who  falls  into  embarrassments  or  is 
overwhelmed  by  misfortune  has  no  one  to  whom 
to  turn,  and  takes  to  anything  at  short  notice  and 
in  utter  desperation,  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the 
door. 

Cities  should  be  suppressed,  but  that  is  impos- 
sible.    They  should  be  properly  policed  by  per- 


"  MV    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE/' 

sons  competent  to  discover  and  report  those  most 
in  need  of  assistance ;  but  that  also  seems  im- 
possible. The  only  chance  left  seems  to  be  that 
the  larger  the  city  the  greater  shall  be  the  mis- 
sionary work  done  in  it  by  all  denominations. 
When  Jesus  was  alive  and  was  anxious  to  secure 
the  attention  of  the  people,  he  did  not  bemoan 
their  sad  condition,  but  on  one  occasion,  when 
some  thousands  of  them  followed  him,  he  him- 
self supplied  them  with  food.  The  servant  is 
not  greater  than  the  master,  and  religious  people, 
regardless  of  differences  of  creed,  can  find  no 
better  work  in  large  cities  than  to  search  out  the 
needy  and  endeavor  to  lift  their  feet  out  of  the 
mire  and  put  them  in  a  dry  place,  to  quote  from 
the  inspired  psalmist  in  one  of  his  most  eloquent 
passages. 

One  good  and  pressing  reason — though  a 
selfish  one — for  closer  and  more  sympathetic 
attention  to  the  poor  of  large  cities,  is  that  the 
great  mass  of  criminals  come  from  the  poorer 
classes,  and  that  when  criminals  are  once  made 
it  is  hard  to  unmake  them.  The  famous  Inspec- 
tor Byrne,  of  New  York,  the  man  most  feared 
by  wrongdoers  everywhere,  spends  annually  a 
great  deal  of  his  hard-earned  money  in  trying  to 
persuade  criminals  not  to  drop  back  into  their 
old  ways,  but  he  believes  that  he  only  retards 
their  return  to  crime — not  that  he  effects  any 
reformations.  The  following  words  from  a  man 


OUR  CITIES.  507 

of  his  stern  experience  and  sympathetic  nature 
are  terrible  in  their  warning  against  neglect  of 
the  class  from  which  most  criminals  spring : 

"  My  personal  opinion  is.  that  it  is  utterly  im- 
possible to  reform  criminals.  There  are  certain 
fancy  measures  pursued  in  this  city  for  the 
reformation  of  criminals,  but  they  are  all  bosh ; 
they  do  not  reform  the  outlaws.  To  some  extent 
such  efforts  are  made  for  the  purpose  of  public 
notoriety.  I  know  people  in  this  city  who  claim 
that  they  want  to  reform  thieves.  They  get 
hold  of  notorious  scoundrels  when  they  come  out 
of  state-prison,  and  so  long  as  the  thief  is  a  good 
1  star-actor,'  and  goes  from  place  to  place  and 
tells  all  sorts  of  things  that  are  villanous  and 
bad  about  himself  (no  matter  whether  they  be 
lies  or  the  truth),  he  is  lauded  around  by  these 
people  as  a  great  attraction.  The  moment  he 
discontinues  that  kind  of  performance  they 
throw  him  out  in  the  street  because  he  is  of  no 
use  to  them  ;  he  doesn't (  draw.' 

"  So  far  as  the  efforts  of  religious  people  are 
concerned  in  this  matter  of  criminal  reformation, 
I  say  that  their  efforts  are  laudable.  They  cer- 
tainly mean  well.  They  devote  time  and  money 
to  the  work ;  but  they  have  no  practical  experi- 
ence with  criminals,  and  their  efforts  count  for 
very  little.  It  is  sometimes  claimed  that,  under 
the  influence  of  prayers  and  preaching,  the  crim- 
inal's heart  is  touched,  he  sees  the  error  of  his 


508        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

ways,  lie  is  converted ;  I  do  not  believe  it.  As 
the  word  '  reformation '  is  ordinarily  used,  I 
know  there  is  no  such  experience  among 
thieves." 

It  will  not  do  to  dispose  of  the  subject  by 
saying  that  there  must  be  criminals  in  the  world, 
and  that  we  pay  policemen  to  take  care  of  them. 
No  police  force  can  entirely  suppress  crime  ;  there 
are  too  many  evil-doers  to  be  watched,  and  each 
has  his  own  style.  Inspector  Williams,  of  New 
York,  an  officer  almost  as  widely  known  as 
Inspector  Byrne,  and  who  has  had  charge  of  the 
most  dangerous  precincts  in  the  city,  wrote  re- 
cently : 

"  The  general  public,  who  look  upon  criminals 
as  a  class  by  themselves,  are  apt  to  think  that 
one  criminal  is  very  much  like  another.  This  is 
not  a  fact.  I  have  been  a  policeman  for  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  I  have  never  seen  two 
criminals  who  were  very  nearly  alike  in  charac- 
ter. A  Siamese-twinship  in  the  annals  of  crime 
is  unknown.  When  we  enter  the  criminal 
world  and  seek  to  deal  with  its  members  from 
any  point  of  view,  we  must  look  upon  them  indi- 
vidually, not  collectively." 

All  of  which  means  that  the  only  way  to 
lessen  the  number  of  criminals  is  to  see  to  it  that 
wretchedness  of  the  masses  of  population  in  our 
large  cities  shall  not  be  allowed  to  send  new 
recruits  to  the  ranks. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

RELIGION. 

OURS  is  the  most  religious  country  on  the  face 
of  trie  earth.  There  are  more  churches  to  the 
square  mile  of  city  and  village  area  than  any 
other  part  of  the  world,  not  excepting  the  grand 
old  city  of  Rome.  They  may  not  be  all  of  the 
same  denomination,  but  their  attendants  worship 
the  same  God.  They  may  quarrel  a  great  deal 
about  points  of  faith,  but  on  essentials  they  are, 
if  not  exactly  one,  so  closely  related  that  there  is 
room  for  any  amount  of  hope.  About  baptism 
and  regeneration  and  sanctification  and  adoption 
and  perhaps  damnation  they  may  differ  fright- 
fully ;  but  all  of  them  base  their  belief  upon  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  look  for  their  spiritual  in- 
spiration to  the  law  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment, preferably  that  of  the  four  gospels. 

Religion  is  a  life,  whatever  else  it  may  or  may 
not  be.  No  person  who  makes  any  pretence  of 
being  religious  declines  to  admit  that  his  creed  is 
the  basis  of  the  life  which  he  would  like  to  lead, 
whether  or  not  he  may  succeed  in  making  his 
practice  conform  to  his  principles. 

509 


510        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

That  religion  consists  in  proper  life  with  a 
view  to  a  life  to  come,  or  at  least  that  it  is  so  re- 
garded, is  proved  by  the  custom  which  becomes 
more  and  more  prevalent  of  judging  men  and 
women  according  to  their  religious  professions. 

There  was  a  time  when,  if  a  man  assented  to 
a  given  form  of  faith,  his  life  might  be  almost 
anything  he  pleased ;  and  some  of  the  most  ac- 
tive "  Defenders  of  the  Faith,"  as  they  styled 
themselves,  whether  they  were  Catholics,  Prot- 
estants, Trinitarians  or  Unitarians,  have  been 
found  among  men  who  would  nowadays  not  be 
considered  fit  to  introduce  into  respectable  society. 
The  time  when  such  things  were  has  departed, 
and  shows  not  the  faintest  sign  of  ever  returning 
again.  To-day  a  man's  religious  profession  is  re- 
garded as  an  assertion  by  himself  of  what  he 
would  have  his  life,  and  what  he  proposes  that 
his  life  shall  be  judged  by. 

A  cheering  sign  of  the  earnestness  and  sin- 
cerity of  religion  in  modern  times  is  that  there 
is  very  little  proselyting  now.  People  who  smile 
cheerfully  at  one  another  during  six  days  of  the 
week,  do  not  glare  and  frown  at  one  another  on 
Sunday,  as  they  used  to  do  when  meeting  on 
their  ways  to  their  respective  churches,  and  from 
the  manners  of  members  of  different  denomina- 
tions meeting  in  business  or  polite  society,  no  one 
could  imagine  or  discern  to  what  particular  creed 
any  one  of  those  people  subscribed.  The  Meth- 


RELIGION.  511 

odist,  the  Baptist,  the  Catholic,  the  Episcopalian, 
meet  each  other  cheerily  in  business  and  in  so- 
ciety, their  families  intermarry,  they  have  busi- 
ness relations  with  each  other,  and  no  one  in  in- 
dorsing or  cashing  a  business  man's  note  ever 
thinks  of  asking  to  what  particular  church  he 
may  belong. 

In  a  number  of  country  towns  this  fraternal 
feeling  has  been  largely  stimulated  and  strength- 
ened by  what  are  called  "  union  meetings,"  in 
which  all  the  members  of  all  the  congregations 
in  the  town  unite  at  appointed  dates  in  general 
services  of  prayer  and  worship.  Occasionally 
the  pastor  of  some  church  in  the  vicinity  may 
object  to  taking  part  in  such  services,  but  pastors 
in  congregations  are  frequently  like  Congressmen 
and  the  people — the  followers  are  ahead  of  the 
leader.  Only  a  little  while  ago  a  Catholic  priest 
of  high  repute  in  his  own  denomination,  and  held 
in  high  esteem  by  the  entire  community  in  which 
he  was  known,  ascended  the  platform  at  a  west- 
ern camp-meeting,  in  which  denominations  differ- 
ing from  his  own  had  united,  and  made  a  most 
earnest  undenominational  and  spiritual  address 
to  the  entire  audience  before  him. 

Revival  meetings,  however  they  may  be  laughed 
at  by  the  more  refined  and  fastidious  of  church 
people,  have  had  the  effect  in  late  years  of  at- 
tracting a  great  many  thousands  of  people  toward 
religious  life.  The  most  noted  of  these  were 


512  "  MY    COUNTRY,   *TIS   OF   THEE.'* 

conducted,  as  every  one  knows,  by  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey,  two  men  who  were  never 
regularly  ordained  as  clergymen  by  any  author- 
ity whatever — they  are  simple  laymen  and  un- 
denominational workers.  Yet  these  men  never 
went  to  any  city  or  town  to  begin  their  peculiar 
system  of  work  until  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  pas- 
tors of  churches  had  united  in  calling  them  and 
had  promised  to  assist  to  the  best  of  their  ability. 
No  effort  was  made  by  these  men  to  make  con- 
verts for  any  denomination  whatever.  Their 
sole  purpose  was  to  cause  men  and  women  to 
change  their  manner  of  life  from  that  of  the  or- 
dinary every-day  selfishness  of  the  unregenerate 
man  and  to  compel  him  to  recognize  an  over-rul- 
ing Providence  who  should  also  be  the  guide  of 
his  daily  life  in  every  respect.  Mr.  Moody, 
however  "  shaky  "  he  may  have  been  according 
to  any  theological  test,  was  earnest  and  sincere 
enough  to  say  to  all  the  clerical  fraternity  of  any 
town  in  which  he  worked,  that  he  came  only  to 
sow  seed  and  that  it  was  the  business  of  others 
to  reap  the  harvest,  and  that  he  cared  not  into 
whose  flock  the  lambs  were  led,  so  long  as  they 
were  rescued  from  the  wilderness.  The  Moody 
and  Sankey  movement  is  open  to  a  great  deal  of 
criticism,  and  probably  no  one  has  regarded  it 
with  more  jealous  eye  than  newspaper  editors, 
yet  the  editorial  fraternity  throughout  the  coun- 
try has  been  compelled  to  admit  that  the  agita- 


513 


tion  begun  by  these  men  had  a  marked  influence 
for  good  on  whatever  community  it  was  exerted. 

Such  a  movement  would  have  been  utterly  im- 
possible fifty  years  ago,  perhaps  twenty-five  years 
ago.  To  attempt  to  lead  men  to  God  without 
outlining  a  road  which  traversed  a  great  many 
other  roads  said  to  lead  in  the  same  direction 
would  have  united  against  the  leader  all  the 
churches  in  the  vicinity. 

There  are  no  fights  between  denominations 
now-a-days.  A  church  may  fight  within  its  own 
borders  as  furiously  as  a  gang  of  worried  dogs, 
but  for  the  occupants  of  several  different  pulpits 
in  any  given  town  or  in  any  portion  of  a  great 
city  to  call  each  other  bad  names  and  intimate 
that  the  followers  of  any  one  but  the  speaker 
would  find  themselves  after  death  in  a  most  un- 
comfortable and  irremediable  condition  of  soul 
and  body  is^no  longer  the  case.  The  principal 
feeling  now  excited  by  large  success  in  any  par- 
ticular congregation  is  one  of  emulation.  If  one 
church  holds  a  successful  mission  or  revival 
meeting  or  series  of  special  efforts,  and  succeeds 
in  persuading  a  number  of  people  to  enroll  them- 
selves formally  among  any  band  of  persons  pro- 
fessing to  be  Christians,  the  only  competitive 
result  that  can  be  seen  or  heard  of  is  an  effort 
of  the  neighboring  churches  to  go  and  do  like- 
wise. 

Why,  it  is  no  longer  necessary  for  churches  to 

33 


514        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

'be  built  solely  by  those  who  are  members  of  the 
congregation  which  is  endeavoring  to  erect  the 
edifice.  A  subscription  for  the  building  fund  of 
a  church  of  any  denomination  is  passed  around 
among  people  of  all  faiths  and  no  faith,  and 
money  is  subscribed  as  freely  and  as  unreservedly 
as  if  the  effort  was  being  made  simply  for  the 
relief  of  some  individual  in  embarrassment.  It 
has  come  to  be  considered  in  the  United  States 
that  a  church,  no  matter  of  what  denomination, 
is  a  good  thing  to  have  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
the  more  churches  the  better.  Any  man  of  pub- 
lic spirit  or  Christian  feeling  who  has  any  money 
to  spare  can  be  depended  upon  to  subscribe  to  the 
erection  of  a  church  of  any  denomination,  the 
Mormon  church  always  excepted. 

All  this  is  immensely  encouraging  to  men  who 
regard  religion  as  the  greatest  moral  influence  of 
life,  as  well  as  a  promise  of  things  less  seen  yet 
more  important  in  which  the  majority  of  people 
believe  more  or  less  blindly.  The  change  has 
come  about  through  the  different  pulpit  method 
that  has  come  in  vogue  within  a  very  few  years. 
Men  have  learned  to  look  upon  religion  of  any 
kind  as  infinitely  preferable  to  no  religion  at  all. 
No  man  who  keeps  his  eyes  open  has  failed  to 
see  changes,  such  as  can  be  accounted  for  by  no 
other  theory,  as  to  the  possibilities  of  human 
nature,  suddenly  and  quietly  achieved  through 
the  practice  of  religious  life  as  indicated  by  some 


RELIGION.  515 

particular  creed.  So  far  as  changes  in  the  lives 
of  individuals  are  concerned,  creed  seems  to  make 
very  little  difference.  Within  the  lines  of  all 
denominations  men  can  be  found  who,  according 
to  every  rule  and  precedent  of  human  nature, 
should  be  dishonest,  indolent,  vile,  and  brutal, 
yet  who  have  suddenly  become  respectable  and 
in  all  things  visible  entirely  decent.  Any  at- 
tempts to  break  down  religion,  as  such,  are  stoutly 
combated  by  the  entire  intelligent  portion  of  the 
community,  barring  the  few  dilettanti  who  are 
not  certain  about  anything,  and  least  of  all  about 
whatever  will  make  themselves  amenable  to  the 
moral  law.  Colonel  Bob  Ingersoll  can  draw  a 
large  crowd  in  a  large  city,  but  never  in  his  life 
has  he  had  as  large  an  audience  as  can  be  found 
any  Sunday  in  any  one  of  twenty  churches  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  and  were  he  to  enter  some 
of  our  smaller  towns  he  would  find  himself  with 
the  same  proportion  of  hearers.  Most  religious 
people  who  think — and  most  of  them  do  think — 
have  periods  of  doubt  on  a  great  many  topics 
which  in  the  earlier  portion  of  their  new  life 
seemed  to  them  essentials.  Nevertheless  they 
have  learned  by  experience  not  to  change  their 
faith,  much  less  to  abandon  it,  because  of  some 
things  which  they  do  not  understand.  Since  re- 
ligion has  become  a  life  instead  of  a  mere  belief, 
all  men  who  sincerely  practice  it  have  learned 
that  there  is  a  great  unknown  of  human  expe- 


510        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

rience  beyond  which  their  own  lives  cannot  reach 
except  at  certain  times  and  under  certain  influ- 
ences, and  to  abandon  what  they  doubt  would 
mean  to  them  to  also  forego  the  fruits  of  what 
they  already  know  and  believe. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  fear  that  the  United 
States  will  become  an  irreligious  nation.  Some 
church  pews  may  be  empty,  some  men  may  go 
very  seldom  to  service,  or  confession,  but  that 
most  men  think  and  feel  the  influence  of  religion 
upon  the  young  and  upon  the  family  circle  is  too 
well  known  and  established  to  admit  of  any 
doubt.  The  heads  of  families  who  are  most 
careless  about  their  own  personal  lives  are  often 
most  earnest  in  urging  upon  their  families  all 
the  ministrations  of  whatever  churches  they  may 
chance  to  attend.  It  matters  no  longer  from 
what  denomination  is  selected  the  clergyman  who 
shall  ask  grace  at  a  large  public  dinner,  or  open 
a  solemn  public  gathering  with  prayer,  or  as  to 
what  may  be  the  creed  of  the  spiritual  teacher 
who  may  be  asked  to  take  part  in  deliberations 
upon  grave  moral  interests  of  the  community. 

All  this  is  immensely  encouraging,  and  prom- 
ises lasting  good  to  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

WOMAN  AND   HER  WORK. 

FOR  a  whole  generation  the  public  has  been 
hearing  a  great  deal  of  woman's  rights.  Already, 
however,  woman  has  secured  one  of  the  greatest 
rights  in  the  world.  She  has  the  right  to  labor 
in  any  capacity  in  which  men  hitherto  have  been 
employed. 

Some  close  observers  have  dignified  this  change 
by  calling  it  the  liberation  of  woman.  But  closer 
observers  realize  that  it  is  also  the  liberation 
of  man.  Woman  is  doing  a  great  deal  of  work 
which  man  used  to  do  and  which  it  was  supposed 
only  man  was  competent  to  do,  but  woman  has 
stepped  in  and  done  it  just  as  well  as  man  ever 
did,  and  men,  sometimes  with  thanks  and  occa- 
sionally with  curses,  have  retired  to  other  kinds 
of  labor  more  fit  for  strong  arms. 

The  opinion  of  men  on  this  subject  would 
probably  receive  no  consideration  from  the  gentler 
sex,  but  a  journal  recently  started  specially  to 
advance  the  interests  of  women,  declares  that  at 
the  present  time  there  are  over  three  hundred 
occupations  in  the  United  States,  aside  from 

517 


518        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE" 

housekeeping,  in  which  women  find  abundant 
and  remunerative  employment.  What  woman 
has  said,  man  would  be  a  brute  to  unsay. 

There  has  been  a  decided  gain  to  the  world  by 
this  change,  but  the  greatest  gain  has  been  to  the 
sex  to  which  the  world  has  been,  if  not  cruel,  cer- 
tainly indifferent.  Woman  has  been  the  slave, 
the  plaything,  the  toy  of  man  so  long  that  it  is 
hard  to  get  out  of  the  public  mind  the  idea  that 
woman  is  simply  an  appendage  to  the  ruder 
being,  and  that  whatever  she  is  or  is  to  have  de- 
pends upon  the  generosity  of  man.  The  gen- 
erosity of  man  is  no  more  to  be  depended  upon 
by  the  gentler  sex  than  it  is  by  men  themselves. 
All  men  are  generous  when  they  are  not  likely  to 
lose  anything  by  it.  All  men  also  are  selfish, 
and  woman  would  not  now  have  her  present 
chance  in  the  United  States  were  it  not  that  men 
saw  a  gain  for  themselves  in  the  change. 

Woman  may  not  be  getting  as  much  money 
for  some  kinds  of  work  as  man  would  were  he 
doing  the  same  work  himself.  But  the  beginning 
counts  for  a  great  deal  in  this  world.  Everybody 
knows  the  old  saying  that  the  first  step  is  half 
the  battle,  and  woman  has  taken  the  first  step. 
According  to  the  authority  above  quoted  she  has 
taken  over  three  hundred  of  them,  which  is  more 
than  man  can  say  for  himself  during  the  same 
period. 

No  matter  what  may  be  said  by  the  men  who 


WOMAN    AND  HER  WORK. 


519 


have  been  displaced  by  women  in  the  various  de- 
partments of  business  ;  no  matter  what  may  be 
said  by  unpardonable  gossips  about  women 
stepping  aside  from  the  family  circle  to  do  work 
which  has  no  appearance  of  domesticity  about  it, 
the  truth  is  that  the  appearance  of  women  in 
the  business  world  has  been  of  immense  ser- 
vice to  the  gentler  sex,  and  indirectly  of  great 
benefit  to  the  lords  of  creation.  It  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  civilization  of  the  world  that  the 
great  mass  of  mankind  should  realize  that  woman 
is  something  better  than  a  mere  dependent  on 
man,  and  there  is  no  quicker  way  of  teaching 
this  lesson  than  that  of  demonstrating  that 
woman  is  quite  competent  to  take  care  of  herself 
if  she  has  a  fair  chance. 

A  fair  chance  has  been  offered.  It  has  been 
embraced,  and  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
women  in  the  United  States  are  doing  for  them- 
selves far  better  than  they  would  have  been  done 
for  by  the  men  into  whose  power  they  would  have 
fallen  under  the  old  custom  of  making  a  woman's 
maintenance  and  existence  entirely  dependent 
upon  the  male  members  of  her  own  family. 

A  large  department  of  industry  in  which  wo- 
men are  employed,  outside  of  household  duties, 
is  that  of  work  at  the  government  offices  at 
Washington.  Irresponsible  newspaper  para- 
graphers  used  to  write  a  great  many  ugly  things 
about  treasury  clerks  and  pension  office  clerks 


520        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

and  other  feminine  employes  of  the  government. 
But  that  sort  of  writing  has  gone  entirely  out  of 
practice.  Seeing  is  believing,  and  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  American  citizens  who  have 
yearly  visited  the  national  capital  are  satisfied 
from  their  own  observation  and  still  more  by  their 
personal  acquaintance  with  attaches  of  the  dif- 
ferent departments  that  woman  not  only  knows 
how  to  work,  but  can  "prolong  he*  efforts  and 
maintain  regular  hours  quite  as  well  as  any 
man;  and,  to  put  it  mildly,  that  she  is  quite  as 
respectable  as  man. 

Still  more  important,  woman  has  not  yet  found 
it  necessary  to  go  out  to  drink.  It  is  a  severer 
joke  and  comment  upon  the  stronger  sex  than 
any  man  yet  has  been  willing  to  admit  that, 
while  clerks  in  all  departments  of  the  govern- 
ment service  at  the  national  capital  may  be  found 
who  deem  it  necessary  to  stimulate  themselves 
during  business  hours,  women  work  the  cus- 
tomary hours  prescribed,  do  their  work  well,  and 
find  no  need  of  artificial  stimulation. 

Does  this  mean  that  for  sixty  centuries  the 
world  has  been  mistaken  as  to  which  of  the  two 
sexes  is  the  stronger?  This  is  a  good  conun- 
drum to  think  over  when  you  have  some  spare 
time  on  your  hands. 

It  has  also  been  reported  by  the  aforesaid  irre- 
sponsible paragrapher  that  women  clerks  at 
Washington  have  very  little  to  do,  and  that  the 


WOMAN   AND    HER    WORK.  521 

work  with  which  they  are  charged  could  be  at- 
tended to  by  men  with  equal  celerity  and  accu- 
racy ;  but  the  fact  seems  to  be,  according  to  Cabi- 
net officers  of  half  a  dozen  successive  adminis- 
trations, that  the  men  work  neither  so  fast  nor  so 
well,  and  cost  a  great  deal  more  money. 

More  money  probably  will  come  in  time.  No 
slave  can  shake  off  all  his  chains  at  a  single 
blow.  Old  Samson  himself,  when  he  had  broken 
the  manacles  that  bound  him,  was  still  blind  and 
had  to  be  led  about  by  the  hand.  And  woman, 
perhaps,  may  yet  need  some  instruction  and 
friendly  counsel,  but  where  in  a  single  city  a 
great  many  thousands  of  the  gentler  sex  are 
performing  arduous  labor  and  living  up  to  exact- 
ing restrictions,  it  is  far  too  late  to  say  anything 
whatever  about  the  incapacity  of  woman  for  per- 
sistent labor. 

Reference  has  been  made  quite  freely  in  this 
screed  to  the  feminine  employes  of  the  govern- 
ment at  the  national  capital,  but  only  because  this 
is  the  most  prominent  instance  and  illustration  of 
the  capacity  of  women  to  work.  Any  observer, 
however,  can  satisfy  himself,  if  he  will,  on  the 
subject  by  looking  through  prominent  business 
houses  in  any  large  city.  Where  once  every 
desk  had  a  man  behind  it  and  all  the  sales-coun- 
ters were  lined  with  masculine  salesmen,  the 
word  now  in  New  York  and  some  other  cities  is 
that  no  man  shall  be  employed  at  any  work  for 


522        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THKK." 

which  a  woman  can  be  found.  Woman  has  some 
qualities  especially  attractive  to  the  management 
of  a  large  business.  She  never  gets  drunk,  she 
seldom  goes  into  speculation,  and  still  less  fre- 
quently does  she  look  around  for  something  else 
to  do.  Male  clerks  and  salesmen  are  continually 
on  the  lookout  for  something  better.  They  are 
likely  to  put  their  savings  into  Wall  street  or 
some  other  gambling  den.  They  expect  to  make 
a  great  career  in  business  somewhere,  somehow, 
some  time;  but  woman  has  the  superior  quality,  or 
so  it  seems  to  her  employer,  of  being  satisfied  to 
do  well  what  work  she  has  in  hand,  and  look  for 
nothing  else.  Consequently,  marriage  is  almost 
the  only  influence  that  can  ever  remove  her  from 
whatever  may  be  her  chosen  sphere  of  duty. 

But  woman  no  longer  is  satisfied  to  work  for 
poor  wages.  There  are  in  the  United  States 
thousands  of  feminine  physicians.  There  are  a 
few  female  lawyers,  and  indeed  two  or  three  pul- 
pits have  been  satisfactorily  filled  for  a  number 
of  years  by  women.  Other  women  can  be  found 
as  principals  of  large  business  enterprises.  Ev- 
erybody in  Wall  street  knows  Mrs.  Hetty  Green, 
one  of  the  sharpest  and  most  successful  specula- 
tors in  railroad  securities  that  Wall  street  ever 
has  known.  If  she  has  made  any  losses  nobody 
knows  of  them.  On  the  other  side  her  gains 
may  be  counted  by  millions  by  any  broker  on  the 
street.  She  and  her  husband  were  mutually  in- 


WOMAN  AND   HER   WORK.  523 

fcrested  in  a  large  railroad  enterprise.  Her  hus- 
band has  dropped  out  of  sight.  The  wife  remains, 
and  no  broker  or  operator  who  is  not  very  new  at 
the  business  ever  attempts  to  get  the  better  of 
Mrs.  Green.  Her  fortune  has  been  rolling  up 
steadily  until  it  is  estimated  almost  as  high  as 
that  of  any  but  the  three  most  prominent  men  in 
Wall  street,  and  it  continues  to  roll  up.  If  she 
has  any  outside  advisers,  nobody  has  ever  been 
able  to  discover  who  they  are.  Her  methods  are 
so  quiet  and  straightforward  that  she  mystifies 
the  very  elect  among  railroad  men. 

The  business  of  editing  a  newspaper  is  sup- 
posed to  call  for  at  least  as  high  a  combination  of 
intellectual  qualities  as  that  of  being  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  there  are  men  who 
imagine  that  the  first-class  editor  would  let  him- 
self down  were  he  to  accept  the  Presidency.  Yet 
several  prominent  newspapers  in  the  United 
States  are  not  only  edited,  but  managed  in  their 
business  departments  by  women.  They  are  not 
those  most  talked  about;  nevertheless  their  stock 
is  not  in  the  market,  and  it  seldom  changes 
hands. 

Woman  is  said  to  be  of  quicker  sensibilities 
than  man.  No  one  will  doubt  it  who  has  seen  a 
woman  count  currency  at  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment at  Washington,  or  handle  a  type-writing 
machine  in  an  office  in  a  large  city.  Recently 
there  have  been  some  exciting  contests  between 


524  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

type-writers,  and  most  of  the  winners  have  been 
women.  In  the  city  of  Cincinnati,  which  con- 
tains more  artistic  furniture  probably  than  the 
city  of  London  or  Paris,  the  work  has  been  done 
almost  entirely  by  the  eyes  and  hands  of  women. 
A  few  years  ago  Hood's  "  Song  of  the  Shirt " 
was  quoted  as  frequently  in  America  as  it  once 
was  in  England,  but  nowadays  only  the  stupidest 
of  women,  or  those  caught  most  suddenly  in  em- 
barrassments and  without  any  preparation  for 
the  battle  of  life,  give  themselves  to  the  needle. 
Men  do  that  sort  of  work  now.  Reduced  gentle- 
women who  support  themselves  by  sewing  still 
exist,  but  they  are  not  easy  to  find.  Instead  of 
making  shirts  or  other  cheap  clothing  at  starva- 
tion wages,  the  woman  out  of  employment  nowa- 
days turns  herself  to  some  specialty  of  needle- 
work if  she  knows  no  other  tool  or  method,  and 
there  are  "  exchanges  "  at  which  her  work  may 
be  displayed  and  at  which  orders  are  given  ac- 
cording to  the  samples  shown  and  at  prices 
which  would  astonish  the  old-time  slaves  of  the 
needle.  Women  are  in  all  the  telegraph  offices. 
They  are  clerks  in  thousands  of  business  houses. 
They  are  mechanics,  artisans  and  artists  all  over 
the  country.  It  has  become  so  much  the  fashion 
for  women  to  work  that  nowadays  there  are  signs 
in  London,  Paris  and  New  York  of  common  busi- 
ness enterprises  presided  over  by  women  with 
titles.  The  Princess  de  Sagan,  one  of  the  bril- 


WOMAN   AND   HER   WORK.  525 

liant  lights  of  the  court  of  the  last  Napoleon, 
manages  a  dress-making  establishment  in  Paris 
and  New  York.  Other  ladies,  equally  illus- 
trious, are  well  known  in  trade  circles  in  London 
and  on  the  Continent. 

All  this  looks  strongly  like  the  emancipation 
of  women,  but  it  does  not  at  first  sight  convey  its 
full  meaning  to  the  observer  or  reader.  The 
most  important  result  of  it  all  is  that  woman  is 
thus  made  independent  of  man.  A  woman  of 
brains  no  longer  needs  to  marry  in  order  to  have 
a  home.  It  would  be  difficult  to  suggest  the  pro- 
portion of  unhappy  marriages  which  have  been 
due  to  the  fact  that  admirable  women  have  been 
utterly  unable  to  care  for  themselves  in  the  world, 
and  consequently  have  attached  themselves  for 
prudential  reasons,  although  by  a  revered  form 
and  sacrament,  to  some  man.  But  no  longer  is 
this  necessary.  There  are  all  kinds  of  women  as 
well  as  all  kinds  of  men  in  business,  but  it  is  far 
safer  in  society  to  attempt  a  romantic  flirtation 
with  a  woman  than  to  make  similar  attempts  in 
any  business  circles  where  women  are  employed. 
There  are  a  great  many  handsome  and  spirited 
women  in  the  departments  at  Washington,  but  no 
sentimental  young  man  is  fool  enough  to  lounge 
about  these  places  with  the  hope  of  getting  up 
a  flirtation.  The  woman  who  knows  how  to  sup- 
port herself  is  not  going  to  be  in  haste  to  marry. 
When  she  marries  she  is  going  to  have  a  hus- 

82 


526  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OV   THEE.5' 

band,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  as  well  as  a 
home.  She  can  afford  to  wait.  She  has  entire 
control  of  her  own  destiny  and  she  cannot  be 
taken  at  a  disadvantage.  Instead  of  marrying 
for  a  home,  the  tables  have  been  so  turned  that 
nowadays  a  large  number  of  men  are  on  the  look- 
out for  women  who  can  give  them  a  home. 
Plenty  of  men  can  be  found  who  are  desirous  of 
marrying  in  order  to  be  supported,  instead  of 
marrying  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  somebody 
else. 

The  gain  to  woman  in  this  change  of  affairs 
is  simply  inestimable.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
call  any  one's  attention  to  the  comparative  great- 
ness of  risk  which  woman  sustains  in  entering  the 
marriage  relation  now,  and  the  helplessness  in 
which  she  found  herself  under  the  old  rule,  when 
man  was  the  only  wage-earner.  Women  are 
working  for  themselves,  even  married  women,  all 
over  the  United  States.  In  many  of  the  New 
England  manufacturing  towns  there  are  hun- 
dreds, and  in  some  of  them  thousands,  of  women, 
already  married,  working  at  the  same  trades  as 
their  husbands,  but  keeping  their  own  separate 
bank  accounts  at  the  savings  banks.  A  man  can 
no  longer  afford  to  abuse  a  woman  because  she  is 
dependent  upon  him,  and  dare  not  complain,  for 
fear  of  losing  her  source  of  maintenance.  A 
woman  of  any  brains  in  any  industry  can  care 
for  herself  quite  as  well  as  any  husband  is  likely 


WOMAN   AND   HER   WORK.  527 

to  care  for  her.  The  consequence  is  that  divorces 
are  very  infrequent  in  New  England  manu- 
facturing towns.  If  either  member  of  a  married 
couple  is  given  to  lounging  and  bad  habits,  it  is 
likely  to  be  the  man.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  in 
man's  favor  that  the  temptations  are  principally 
on  the  masculine  side.  Women  have  not  yet  to 
any  extent  taken  to  drink,  billiards  and  politics. 
They  do  not  bet  on  horse-raceG  or  buy  pools  on 
sparring  matches  or  go  on  excursions  to  neigh- 
boring towns  for  the  sake  of  indulging  habits 
which  are  unsafe  to  make  public  at  home;  so 
the  woman  of  the  house  is  far  less  likeljf  to  be 
out  of  work  or  to  be  away  from  her  post  than  her 
husband. 

What  the  effect  of  this  change  in  the  indus- 
trial outlook  may  be  upon  children  is  yet  un- 
known. But  it  is  a  fair  question,  whether  the 
woman  whose  daily  hours  .are  employed  at  me- 
chanical or  clerical  occupations  is  likely  to  bring 
up  her  children  worse  than  the  woman  whose 
leisure  moments  are  consumed  in  small  talk  and 
social  dissipation.  No  child  can  be  less  cared 
for  than  that  of  the  society  queen.  The  com- 
monest washer-woman,  who  leaves  her  home  at 
early  dawn  and  does  not  return  until  dark,  can 
give  her  offspring  more  attention  than  can  be 
expected  by  the  children  of  many  ladies  whose 
names  appear  in  the  fashionable  columns  of 
newspapers  which  give  considerable  space  to  that 


528  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

sort  of  thing.  Whether  each  family  should  not 
contain  one  member  whose  duties  and  interests 
are  entirely  confined  to  the  home  circle,  is  also  a 
question  upon  which  a  great  deal  can  be  said  upon 
both  sides.  But  the  fact  to  be  brought  into 
prominence  at  the  present  time  is  that  woman 
has  already  acquired  the  right  to  earn  her  own 
living  and  is  doing  it,  to  the  extent  of  some  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  women,  most  admirably. 
Women  are  presidents  of  large  colleges  in  the 
United  States ;  colleges,  it  is  true,  intended  solely 
for  the  education  of  members  of  their  own  sex ; 
nevertheless  the  course  of  study  and  the  subse- 
quent social  and  literary  standing  of  the  gradu- 
ates shows  that  the  work  done  in  these  institu- 
tions is  well  done.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  in 
the  better  colleges  for  girls  in  the  United  States. 
The  demand  for  scholarships  far  exceeds  the 
supply,  and  there  are  millionaires  in  this  country 
who  have  not  yet  been  able  to  put  their  daugh- 
ters in  any  one  of  the  three  or  four  best  femi- 
nine colleges  in  the  land. 

In  literature  woman  has  made  her  way  to  an 
extent  which  every  one  knows,  if  he  reads  at 
all.  Our  most  popular  novels  are  all  written 
by  women.  Women  write  a  great  deal  of  our 
poetry.  It  is  impossible  to  find  a  first-class  mag- 
azine which  does  not  contain  a  number  of  con- 
tributions by  women,  and  those  contributions  are 
quite  as  much  talked  about  and  quite  as  fre- 


SEAIiS    OF    THE    THlRTEEfi   O^IGIJ^ALi    STATES. 


^CONNECTICUT 


WOMAN   AND   Jt£R  WORK.  529 

qtiently  read  as  anything  written  by  the  most 
prominent  masculine  minds  in  the  land.  As  a 
novelist,  the  young  woman  is  immeasurably  the 
superior  of  the  young  man.  No  young  man 
ever  wrote  a  novel  as  famous  as  "  Charles  Au- 
chester  "  at  as  early  an  age  (seventeen  years)  as 
that  of  the  young  lady  who  is  the  author  of  this 
still  much-read  book;  and  our  publishers  are 
flooding  the  market  with  other  novels  by  women 
who  have  not  yet  reached  their  majority.  If 
quick  perception,  facility  of  expression,  and 
piquant  comment  are  sufficient  to  make  the 
novelist,  our  future  novels  must  be  written  prin- 
cipally by  young  women.  That  they  make  some 
dreadful  blunders  is  very  true.  Some  of  the 
most  abominable  books  that  have  been  inflicted 
upon  a  much-suffering  public  during  the  past 
year  have  been  from  the  pens  of  young  women 
who  ought  to  have  known  better,  if  they  had 
known  anything  at  all.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a 
great  deal  easier  in  literature  to  tone  down  than 
to  tone  up,  and  somehow  the  necessity  for  toning 
down  has  not  been  apparent  to  any  great  extent 
in  fiction  and  poetry  written  by  young  men. 

The  "  restraining  force,"  to  which  social  phi- 
losophers attribute  the  sudden  rise  of  some  family, 
nation  and  tribe,  may  account  for  the  sudden 
prominence  and  brilliancy  of  women  in  many 
departments  of  life.  There  may  be  such  a  thing 
as  inheritance  by  sex,  and  a  sex  long  suppressed, 


530  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

as  woman  certainly  has  been,  in  all  but  the  do- 
mestic virtues,  may  have  a  great  deal  to  give  the 
world  and  then  suddenly  fade  out  of  prominence. 
But  at  present  all  odds  are  in  favor  of  woman. 
She  has  made  her  way  so  rapidly,  though  unob- 
trusively, and  so  pleasantly,  that  every  man  who 
has  the  proper  manly  heart  within  him  will  be 
glad  to  see  her  go  a  great  deal  further,  and  be- 
lieve that  she  is  quite  competent  to  do  it. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

OUR  LITERATURE. 

AMERICANS  are  the  greatest  readers  on  earth. 
Any  one  can  tell  you  this — any  one  from  a  col- 
lege president  down  to  the  newsboy  on  a  railway 
train. 

They  read  pretty  much  everything,  and  never 
are  at  a  loss  for  ways  of  obtaining  something  to 
read. 

Books  are  cheaper  here  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  thanks  to  immunity  from  arrest  and 
punishment  for  theft  of  literary  property.  We 
can  take  the  brains  of  all  Europe,  as  expressed 
in  printed  pages  on  the  other  side  of  the  At- 
lantic, and  reprint  them  here  without  fear  of  the 
sheriff,  and  what  man  can  do  without  fear  of  the 
law  he  is  likely  to  do  so  long  as  he  sees  any 
money  in  it. 

There  is  no  section,  State  or  town  so  poor  that 
its  people  cannot  find  something  to  read  when 
they  want  it.  The  inhabitants  of  a  township 
whose  centre  is  nothing  but  a  post-office,  a  store 
and  a  blacksmith  shop,  may  be  too  poor  to  buy 

591 


532  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

a  paper  of  pins,  unless  they  have  credit  with  the 
storekeeper,  but  they  always  are  able  to  find 
something  to  read.  If  there  is  nothing  else, 
they  can  fall  back  upon  the  Sunday-school  books, 
and  nowadays  Sunday-school  libraries  are  not  as 
bad  as  they  used  to  be.  Almost  any  book  that 
is  respectable  and  has  any  feature  of  interest  can 
be  worked  into  a  Sunday-school  library  by  an 
enterprising  publisher.  A  Methodist  parson, 
who  was  congratulated  a  short  time  ago  on  his 
great  success  in  organizing  a  Sunday-school 
in  a  sparsely  settled  district  in  one  of  the  West- 
ern States,  said,  with  a  long  sigh :  "  These  chil- 
dren don't  come  here  to  learn  the  truths  of  the 
Gospel ;  they  come  to  get  books  for  their  families 
to  read  during  the  week."  Perhaps  the  old  man 
was  right  in  his  fear  that  the  religious  work  of 
his  parish  was  not  going  on  as  well  as  he  wished ; 
he  certainly  was  entirely  correct  regarding  the 
demand  for  the  books.  Children  who  were  dull 
and  listless  while  the  prayers .  and  singing  and 
lessons  were  going  on  brightened  up  quickly 
when  the  librarians  came  in  to  distribute  the 
books  which  had  been  asked  for,  and  the  worst 
boys  in  town  would  cheerfully  forego  base-ball, 
swimming  parties,  watermelon  stealing,  cock- 
fighting  and  card-playing  for  an  hour  or  two  on 
Sunday  for  the  sake  of  borrowing  a  book  upon 
which  to  spend  the  spare  hours  of  the  week  that 
was  to  follow.  A  good  many  people  were  drawn 


OUR   LITERATURE.  533 

to  Jesus  by  the  loaves  and  fishes,  but  books  are 
the  most  successful  bait  of  the  modern  church. 

But  the  Sunday-school  library  is  the  most 
modest  of  the  many  sources  from  which  the 
poorer  class  of  Americans  draw  their  reading 
matter.  There  are  at  least  a  dozen  series  of 
novels  being  published  in  the  United  States  at 
the  present  time  on  a  plan  which  enables  the 
publishers  to  dodge  the  postal  laws  regarding 
printed  matter  by  assuming  to  be  serial  publica- 
tions. Under  the  law  any  book  sent  out  by  a 
publisher  should  pay  postage  at  the  rate  of  half 
a  cent  an  ounce ;  but  a  library,  so  called,  may 
send  out  its  publications  under  the  rules  govern- 
ing serials  of  every  kind,  which  can  be  paid  for  at 
the  post-office  at  the  rate  of  two  cents  per  pound ; 
consequently  for  several  years  there  has  been 
an  absolute  inundation  of  fiction.  Stimulated 
by  this  feature  of  the  law,  a  number  of  enter- 
prising men  have  reprinted  all  the  standard 
novels  of  the  past  century  in  cheap  form  and 
distributed  them  broadcast  over  the  entire  coun- 
try; and,  to  do  them  justice,  have  also  issued  a 
number  of  histories  and  other  standard  works 
in  the  same  manner,  and  as  people  have  pur- 
chased them,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
they  have  read  them. 

But  books  are  not  all  that  is  read  by  that 
great  portion  of  our  people  who  have  a  great 
deal  of  leisure  time  and  no  sufficient  means  of 


534         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

enjoying  it  beyond  reading.  A  million  maga- 
zines are  circulated  every  month,  and  twice  as 
many  weeklies.  Some  time  ago  the  newspapers 
began  to  realize  this  fact,  and  straightway  they 
supplemented  their  Saturday  or  Sunday  editions 
with  additional  sheets  containing  miscellaneous 
reading-matter  of  all  kinds,  some  of  it  as  good 
as  any  that  appears  in  the  magazines.  The 
worst  of  it  is  quite  as  good  as  the  majority  of 
current  novels ;  and  as  the  highest  price  of  a 
newspaper  in  the  United  States  is  five  cents  per 
copy,  and  the  supplementary  sheets  of  some 
papers  contain  as  much  as  an  entire  magazine, 
there  is  no  lack  of  reading  matter  for  any  one 
who  has  the  price  of  a  glass  of  beer  or  a  cheap 
cigar. 

Not  only  is  the  supply  of  printed  matter  great, 
but  the  demand  is  being  increased  in  many  ways 
that  are  entirely  admirable.  There  are  now  sev- 
eral societies  which  at  a  very  trifling  cost  advise 
people  what  to  read,  and  in  what  order  to  take 
certain  books  in  hand.  Some  of  them — notably 
the  well-known  Chautauqua  Society — have  read- 
ing circles  under  advice  and  partial  supervision 
which  number  as  many  people  as  the  students 
of  all  the  colleges  in  the  country.  A  number 
of  societies  of  similar  purpose  are  scattered  about 
the  country,  each  with  its  list  of  books  which  its 
members  are  advised  to  read — books  which  are 
carefully  selected  by  men  whose  literary  judg- 


OUR   LITERATURE.  535 

i 

ment  would  be  accepted  in  any  intelligent  circle 
in  the  Union. 

One  result  of  the  American  avidity  for  read- 
ing matter  is  that  the  guild  of  American  authors 
is  becoming  quite  as  numerous  as  that  of  any 
other  country  in  the  world.  The  American  who 
does  not  write  a  book  is  almost  a  curiosity  at  the 
present  time,  and  generally  thinks  it  necessary 
to  explain  why  he  has  not  already  done  some- 
thing of  the  kind,  and  when  and  how  he  would 
be  able  to  do  it.  The  stories  which  are  pub- 
lished in  cheap  form  in  the  United  States  are 
largely  from  foreign  pens,  but  it  is  known  to 
those  who  observe  the  subject  closely  that  the 
number  of  American  authors  is  increasing  more 
rapidly  than  in  any  other  country.  Any  one 
here  who  knows  anything  on  a  particular  sub- 
ject, or  who  has  any  reputation  or  prominence 
for  any  reason  whatever,  is  asked  to  write  a 
book,  and  such  invitations  are  very  seldom  de- 
clined ;  for  if  the  man  cannot  write,  he  can  at 
least  hire  some  one  to  put  his  thoughts  into 
words.  Men  who  in  older  countries  would  be 
ashamed  to  take  pen  in  hand  at  all  to  produce 
anything  for  publication,  have  here  received  enor- 
mous compensation  for  single  volumes  on  sub- 
jects with  which  they  merely  were  acquainted, 
not  those  upon  which  they  had  any  reason  to  be 
quoted  as  authority. 

Even  in  the  serious  department  of  history  we 


536        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

have  recently  seen  numerous  books  from  men 
notoriously  unfit  in  point  of  judgment  to  inflict 
anything  of  the  sort  upon  a  confiding  public. 
But  money  is  offered  as  an  inducement,  pen  and 
ink  are  cheap,  type-writers  are  plentiful,  so  the 
work  goes  merrily  on,  and  it  may  need  all  the 
wisdom  of  another  generation  to  correct  the  mis- 
takes which  have  been  made  in  print  by  writers 
of  the  present  time. 

Nevertheless,  the  steady  demand  which  seems 
to  be  profitable  to  both  authors  and  publishers  is 
inciting  the  intelligent  and  educated  class  to 
efforts  which  once  would  have  been  impossible 
except  to  the  very  small  number  who  were  suffi- 
ciently well  off  to  regard  their  literary  work  as 
a  labor  of  love,  and  to  expect  no  compensation 
except  what  might  come  from  approving  con- 
sciences. The  modern  novelist  frequently  gets 
more  for  a  single  volume  than  the  elder  Haw- 
thorne received  for  all  the  books  of  his  incom- 
parable series.  Literature  has  become  a  business 
as  well  as  an  intellectual  occupation.  Mr.  Ban- 
croft probable  expended  more  money  upon  his 
well-known  "History  of  the  United  States'-'  than 
was  received  by  those  who  sold  his  books  at 
retail,  but  nowadays  the  writer  of  an  alleged 
history  can  count  upon  as  much  pay  for  a  has- 
tily prepared  book  as  a  prominent  lawyer  would 
expect  to  receive  for  handling  a  case  requiring 
long  study  and  effort, 


OUR   LITERATURE.  537 

These  things  being  true — and  authors  and 
publishers  will  assure  the  public  that  they  are — 
it  is  entirely  safe  to  assume  that  we  are  soon  to 
have  a  highly  successful  and  valuable  class  of 
writers  in  the  United  States.  '  The  coming 
book,"  an  expression  which  must  soon  go  out  of 
date,  may  be  a  history,  a  poem,  a  biography  or  a 
novel,  but  there  will  be  so  many  more  books  than 
heretofore,  that  a  work  of  great  merit  in  any  de- 
partment of  literature  will  possibly  have  to  wait 
until  another  generation  for  proper  recognition. 
There  is  so  much  ,to  read  that  no  book-worm 
can  keep  pace  with  the  publishers'  presses.  The 
last  new  novel  may  be  very  good  or  very  bad,  but 
whichever  may  be  the  case  the  general  public 
stands  very  little  chance  of  knowing,  for  before 
it  has  had  time  to  reach  the  hands  of  many 
readers  a  dozen  more  have  come  from  the  press, 
and  it  is  only  chance  or  an  exceptional  degree 
of  merit,  which  it  is  unfair  to  expect  of  any  one 
more  than  once  in  a  century,  that  will  bring  a 
book  properly  to  notice. 

For  instance,  some  years  ago  Gen.  Lew  Wal- 
lace wrote  a  story  entitled  "  Ben-Hur,"  which 
sold  fairly  for  a  little  while,  but  made  no  great  ex- 
citement in  the  literary  world.  Fortunately  for 
the  author  and  the  book,  which  certainly  was  an 
original  and  meritorious  production,  Gen.  Wal- 
lace had  an  immense  host  of  personal  friends 
who  little  by  little  had  the  book  brought  to  their 


638  "  MY   COUNTRY,   'TIS   OF   THEE." 

notice ;  they  read  it  and  talked  about  it,  until 
finally,  by  this  unsolicited  and  unpaid  advertis- 
ing, his  story  became  famous  and  is  now  in  its 
third  hundredth  thousand  of  circulation,  with  a 
promise  of  going  on  perhaps  indefinitely. 

Two  years  ago  Mr.  Edward  Bellamy  wrote  his 
"  Looking  Backward."  It  was  a  thoughtful,  able 
story,  touching  many  of  the  nearest  interests  of 
humanity,  but  it  sold  only  a  few  thousand  copies, 
and  seemed  making  its  way  to  the  backs  of  book- 
sellers' shelves,  when  two  or  three  essays  upon 
the  general  subject  recalled  attention  to  it.  The 
people  of  a  single  city — which,  of  course,  was 
Boston — took  it  up  first  as  a  fad,  and  afterwards 
as  a  serious  study,  and  now  the  book  is  in  gen- 
eral demand  and  promises  to  renew  and  widely 
stimulate  public  discussion  of  a  very  old  sub- 
ject which  must  come  to  the  surface  once  in  a 
little  while  until  perhaps  it  becomes  a  recognized 
principle  of  human  conduct  and  existence. 

These  are  merely  two  of  many  books  of 
great  value,  or  at  least  great  interest,  which 
have  been  saved  from,  the  general  literary 
deluge  by  means  which  seem  merely  accidental. 
Of  the  many  which  have  been  lost  perhaps  irre- 
vocably the  public  has  no  idea.  Hawthorne 
himself,  to  whom  allusion  has  already  been  made, 
was  not  read  one-twentieth  as  much  by  the 
people  of  his  own  day  as  now.  Carlyle,  who 
probably  is  more  read  in  America  than  in 


OUR   LITERATURE. 

Europe,  owes  his  popularity  here  and  the  great 
sale  of  his  works  to  the  personal  efforts  of  his 
friend,  Mr.  Emerson,  who  insisted  that  the 
book  should  be  published  in  this  country,  but 
who  would  not  have  succeeded  had  not  his  own 
publishers  had  reasons  for  wishing  to  oblige  him 
personally. 

These  facts  regarding  literature  are  not  pecu- 
liar to  America.  Many  years  ago  an  English- 
man named  Charles  Wells  wrote  a  dramatic 
poem  which  did  not  pass  its  first  edition  of  a 
few  hundred  copies.  About  a  quarter  of  a 
century  later  Swinburne  chanced  upon  a  copy 
of  the  book,  and  wrote  a  review  of  it,  which  set  all 
lovers  of  dramatic  poetry  to  looking  for  the  poem 
itself,  and  now  it  is  making  its  way  through 
edition  after  edition.  Only  ten  years  ago  Brown- 
ing's latest  long  poem,  whatever  it  may  have  been, 
was  refused  successively  by  nearly  all  reputable 
American  publishers,  yet  the  Browning  craze  is 
now  a  matter  of  history. 

The  meaning  of  all  this  is  that  books  come 
from  the  press  far  more  rapidly  than  people  can 
read  them,Jout  the  ease  of  circulation  of  litera- 
ture in  the  United  States  promises  to  change 
all  that.  There  is  now  scarcely  a  town  of  two 
thousand  people  in  the  United  States  which  has 
not  its  circulating  library,  and  which  has  not  also 
some  people  who  are  thoughtful,  intelligent  and 
influential.  A  book  getting  into  such  a  library 


540        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  find  a  large  number 
of  readers.  The  individual  reader  is  the  best 
advertisement  that  either  author  or  publisher  can 
ask  for,  and  though  the  first  edition  may  be  very 
small,  so  small  that  the  publisher  hesitates  to 
reprint,  nevertheless  in  time  a  book  of  any  value 
is  sure  to  be  brought  properly  to  the  attention 
of  the  public. 

There  is  every  reason,  therefore,  to  believe  that 
our  native  authors,  and  many  people  who  can 
write  and  should  write  but  have  not  yet  felt  en- 
couraged to  do  so,  will  yet  be  stimulated  to  do  their 
best  work.  A  prominent  publisher  in  New  York 
was  once  asked — the  question  being  suggested 
by  a  poor  book  which  he  had  published  on  a  very 
interesting  subject — why  he  did  not  secure  a  bet- 
ter man  to  write  it  ?  "  For  the  best  reason  in 
the  world,"  said  he ; "  the  men  who  could  do  justice 
to  the  subject  are  all  making  their  living  in  some 
other  way  and  have  to  pay  close  attention  to  their 
business.  They  can't  afford  to  write  books." 
This  lack  of  financial  encouragement  is  rapidly 
disappearing.  The  man  who  has  anything  to  say 
in  this  country  and  knows  how  to  say  it  properly 
can  now  afford  to  give  time  and  thought  to  his 
subject,  with  the  assurance  that,  when  he  is  ready 
to  write  and  tc  print,  he  will  find  readers. 

It  does  not  follow  that  everything  written  with 
earnestness  and  sincerity  of  purpose  is  worth  at- 
tention. "  Great  minds  think  alike,"  but  not  all 


OUR   LITERATURE.  541 

great  minds  are  properly  educated,  and  we  get  an 
immense  number  of  books,  supposed  by  their 
authors  to  be  original,  whose  contents  are  mere 
skeletons  of  what  has  been  better  expressed  by 
some  one  else.  The  publisher  often  finds  him- 
self in  the  position  of  the  patent  office  ex- 
aminer. It  is  well  known  that  at  the  patent  office 
applications  in  large  numbers  are  received  every 
week  for  letters  patent  on  supposed  inventions 
which  were  made  long  ago  by  some  one  else,  but 
of  which  the  latest  applicant  was  entirely  ignor- 
ant. Men  of  thoughtful  and  inventive  minds 
reproduce  each  other  in  every  clime.  There  is 
not  a  savage  tribe  on  the  face  of  the  earth  which 
did  not  find  out  for  itself  the  art  of  making  cutting 
tools,  building  houses,  constructing  boats,  cooking 
utensils  and  whatever  else  might  be  necessary  to 
domestic  life  and  its  many  necessities.  The  same 
holds  in  literature.  Certain  self-evident  truths 
of  philosophy  or  ethics,  certain  plots  and  situa- 
tions in  fiction,  are  common  to  all  classes  of 
people ;  and  the  consequence  is  that  our  literature 
is  burdened  with  material  of  every  kind,  from  the 
highest  theology  to  the  lowest  sensation,  which 
seems  mere  plagiarism  on  something  which  has 
preceded.  Even  Longfellow,  who  is  nearer  the 
American  heart  than  any  other  of  our  poets,  was 
persistently  accused  of  plagiarism  because  he  ex- 
pressed thoughts  and  ideas  which  had  been  said 
as  well,  sometimes  better,  by  older  poets ;  yet 


542  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS    OF   THEE." 

Longfellow  was  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  wide 
reading. 

But  American  facilities  for  reading  and  for 
learning  all  that  has  been  said  by  the  wiser  minds 
and  more  brilliant  wits  of  other  times  is  bound  to 
change  all  that,  and  probably  within  the  lifetime 
of  the  present  generation.  Besides  from  the  in- 
cidents, peculiarities  and  necessities  of  our  own 
national  life,  our  literature  is  now  extending  into 
all  fields  heretofore  monopolized  by  the  wiser 
minds  of  the  old  world.  •American  essays,  poems 
and  novels  are  now  frequently  reprinted  in 
Europe  and  translated  into  many  languages. 
Many  American  novels  may  now  be  found  in 
several  of  the  older  languages  of  Europe,  and  the 
popular  author  of  the  present  day  does  not  con- 
sider his  work  done  until  he  has  sent  copies  of  his 
original  manuscript  to  at  least  two  European 
publishers.  The  French  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  most  fas- 
tidious of  foreign  publications  in  its  selection  of 
material,  has  given  a  great  deal  of  space  to 
American  novelists  and  poets,  and  again  and 
again  English  novelists  have  complained  that 
some  upstart  American  was  crowding  their  books 
off  of  the  railway  station  news-stands.  Emer- 
son's essays,  Longfellow's  poems,  and  Howell's 
novels  may  be  found  in  any  bookstore  in  Eng- 
land, and  it  is  not  hard  to  find  them  on  the  con- 
tinent. There  are  half  a  dozen  different  editions 


OUR   LITERATURE. 

of  Poe's  poems  in  the  French  language  alone. 
American  historical  works  not  entirely  on  Ameri- 
can topics  may  be  found  in  several  European 
languages,  and  are  held  in  high  esteem  by  foreign 
historians.  One  historical  work  published  in 
the  United  States  two  or  three  years  ago  has  al- 
ready been  translated  into  every  language  of 
Northern  Europe.  How  many  more  there  may 
be  deponent  knoweth  not. 

All  this  is  cheering,  not  only  to  national  pride, 
but  because  there  are  features  in  American  liter- 
ature which  are  superior  to  those  of  any  older 
nation.  This  is  noticeably  true  of  our  fiction,  in 
which  there  are  elements  of  cheerfulness,  hope 
and  humor,  which  are  almost  entirely  lacking  in 
the  light  literature,  so-called,  of  other  countries. 
When  one  speaks  of  a  foreign  novel  from  any 
press  but  that  of  Great  Britain  the  supposition 
naturally  is  that  it  relates  entirely  to  the  closer 
relations  of  the  sexes ;  that  the  end  of  it  will  not 
be  entirely  pleasing ;  and  that,  however  strong  its 
plot  and  diction,  it  will  not  be  what  is  called 
"  entirely  proper," — it  will  not  be  a  book  which 
one  can  safely  take  home  without  reading  and 
leave  on  the  table  of  his  sitting-room  for  wife, 
children  and  visitors  to  pick  up  at  random. 

Some  of  that  sort  of  stuff  has  come  from  the 
American  press  of  late  years,  more's  the  pity,  but 
it  promises  to  be  rather  sporadic  and  accidental 
than  a  prominent  feature  of  our  literature.  It 


544        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE/' 

resembles  an  outbreak  of  yellow  fever  in  a  North- 
ern port — something  which  may  get  there  by 
accident  and  do  mischief  for  a  little  while,  but 
which  cannot  effect  a  permanent  lodgment. 
The  mass  of  unclean  stories  which  ventured  into 
the  daylight  of  print  after  the  publication  of 
Amelie  Rives'  sensational  novel  is  already  begin- 
ning to  disappear.  When  for  a  day  or  two  a  city 
chances  to  fall  under  mob  law,  the  world  seems 
turned  upside  down  for  the  time  being  ;  but  the 
better  sense  and  strength  of  the  community  soon 
come  to  the  rescue  and  the  dangerous  element  is 
suppressed.  A  similar  result  is  already  being 
accomplished  regarding  pernicious  fiction.  Pub- 
lishers who  have  hastily  accepted  stories  which 
their  professional  readers  pronounced  "  strong  " 
are  beginning  to  apologize  for  offering  such  stuff 
to  the  public. 

American  literature  will  be  marked  by  a  hopeful, 
cheerful,  clean,  energetic  spirit,  and  as  such  it  will 
give  our  people  what  they  cannot  easily  obtain 
from  the  presses  of  foreign  countries.  We  have 
faults  enough,  of  which  mention  has  frequently 
been  made  in  this  book,  but  lack  of  respectability 
and  of  hopefulness  are  not  among  them.  Our 
novels  are  cleaner  than  those  of  any  other  land; 
our  history  in  the  main  is  decidedly  cheering  and 
stimulating  in  its  influence  ;  our  poetry,  although 
perhaps  not  as  elegant  as  that  of  En  rope,  has  a  great 
deal  more  of  inspiration  in  it  for  readers,  and  our 


OUR   LITERATURE.  545 

fiction  is  based  upon  the  life  of  our  own  people, 
which  is  in  the  main  respectable.     Incidents  and 
scenes  as  bad  as  any  that  the  world  can  supply 
may  of  course  be  found  in  American  life  by  those 
who  choose  to  look  for  them,  but  they  are  not 
likely  to  be  written  up  or  read  to  any  extent, 
except  by  the  vulgar  classes.     Books  about  which 
intelligent  and  cultivated  people  on  the  continent 
will  talk  freely  in  social  circles  are  scarcely  toler- 
ated here ;  some  of  them  are  reprinted,  but  the 
editions  as  a  rule  are  very  small.     Translations 
of  continental  novels  have  generally  failed  dis- 
mally in  a  commercial  sense  in  the  United  States. 
There  are  a  few  exceptions,  but  the  rule  is  so 
distinct  that  no  one  of  literary  taste,  ability  and 
intelligence  now  wastes  his  time  in  translating 
foreign  novels  in  the  hope  of  securing  American 
publishers.     The  native  writer  as  a  rule  is  not  as 
skilful  as  his  foreign  brother,  but  he  successfully 
tells  our  people  of  what  they  wish  to  know.   He  is 
in  sympathy  with  their  thoughts,  tastes,  customs 
and  aspirations,  so  his  stories  and  essays  are  found 
in  all  our  weekly  papers  and  magazines,  while 
more  skilful  productions  of  foreign  pens,  which 
might  be  had  for  nothing,  are  generally  excluded. 
There  is  no  longer  any  question  as  to  whether 
we  shall  have  a  literature  of  our  own.     We  have 
it.     It  is  increasing  in  volume  more  rapidly  than 
our  people  can  follow  it.     It  is  a  good  sign.     It 
means  that  we  are  a  "  peculiar  people  " — not  per- 


546        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

haps  in  the  sense  in  which  the  expression  was 
used  regarding  the  ancient  Hebrews,  yet  in  some 
respects  it  means  the  same.  Conceit  aside,  it 
really  means  that  we  are  better  than  other 
people.  Long  may  we  remain  so  ! 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
AMERICAN   HUMOR. 

THE  burden  of  foreign  criticism  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  may  be  expressed  in  the 
language  of  the  vulgar  by  saying  that  we  are 
"  too  fresh."  Well,  if  we  are,  we  have  the  salt 
that  will  save  us,  and  that  salt  is  American 
Humor. 

Whatever  may  be  the  failing  of  any  American, 
whether  native  or  adopted,  he  may  generally  be 
depended  upon  for  a  sense  of  humor.  If  there 
is  no  other  point  of  contact  between  him  and  the 
stranger  who  encounters  him,  it  is  quite  safe  to 
fall  back  upon  humor  as  a  common  meeting 
ground. 

This  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  in  which 
everybody  indulges  in  joking.  Other  countries 
have  their  wits  and  humorists  who  are  a  special 
class  among  themselves.  But  here  any  and 
every  man  must  have  a  sense  of  humor  and  know 
how  to  use  it  if  he  wants  to  get  along  with  his 
fellow-citizens. 

Some  of  our  most  humorous  men  are  solemn 
judges.  Others  are  physicians.  Editors  are 

647 


548        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

humorists  as  a  matter  of  ceurse,  and  even  the 
clergyman  with  a  level  head  leans  to  the  belief 
that  his  education  is  incomplete  until  he  can  turn 
a  joke  as  well  as  he  can  preach  a  sermon. 

We  joke  about  everything.  This  does  not 
mean  that  we  make  fun  of  everything,  but  that, 
as  everything  has  its  possible  humorous  side,  we 
are  competent  to  see  it  and  call  attention  to  it. 

There  is  no  department  of  American  history, 
political,  military,  social  or  religious,  in  which 
traces  of  the  humorist  may  not  be  found. 
There  was  considerable  sense  of  fun  among  the 
grim  old  fellows  who  came  over  in  the  May- 
flower, as  any  one  may  find  out  for  himself  if  he 
will  take  the  trouble  to  look  to  the  original  rec- 
ords, and  in  the  many  volumes  of  correspondence 
which  have  appeared  in  genealogical  history  of 
the  first  families  of  New  England.  There  is 
quite  as  much  sense  of  humor  manifested  as  in 
similar  records  of  the  first  families  of  Virginia. 
It  is  the  custom  in  history  to  draw  a  sharp  divid- 
ing line  between  these  two  classes  of  American 
pioneers,  but  the  line  disappears  as  soon  as  one 
gets  beneath  the  surface.  Solemnity  and  serious- 
ness, whether  counterfeit  or  genuine,  can  be 
maintained  for  only  a  certain  length  of  time  by 
any  one.  So  Puritan  and  Cavalier  speedily  went 
back  to  a  distinguishing  trait  of  their  common 
ancestors  in  the  old  country,  and  improved 
upon  it. 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  £49 

In  the  United  States  no  subject  is  too  sacred  to 
joke  about ;  or,  at  least,  too  sacred  to  be  exam- 
ined in  trie  light  of  humor.  Americans  as  a  class 
are  a  reverent  people.  They  would  not  for  the 
world  make  fun  of  the  Deity,  but  many  of  them 
talk  of  the  most  sacred  sentiments  and  person- 
ages with  a  familiarity  and  play  of  humor  which 
terribly  shock  some  of  the  formalists  from  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  When  Mr.  Lowell  wrote 
his  earlier  series  of  the  "Bigelow  Papers"  his 
verses  were  read  with  much  curiosity  and  some 
delight  in  Kurope,  but  suddenly  the  entire  Bng- 
lish  press  was  horrified  by  his  lines : 

"  You've  got  to  get  up  airly 
Ef  you  -want  to  take  in  God." 

This  was  pronounced  by  one  high  English  liter- 
ary authority  the  most  irreverent  and  blasphe- 
mous expression  that  ever  had  appeared  in  print ; 
but  Mr.  Lowell  replied  by  saying  that  familiarity 
was  not  irreverence ;  that  the  early  American 
was  intimately  acquainted  with  his  God — he  had 
to  be.  There  was  no  other  friend  upon  whom  he 
could  rely,  and  conscientiously  he  talked  about 
Him  in  a  half  playful  but  always  affectionate 
manner,  which  was  the  custom  regarding  the 
earthly  parents  of  the  period. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  anywhere  in  American 
society,  no  matter  how  high  nor  how  serious  the 
subject  under  consideration  may  be,  without  en- 
countering, generally  to  the  hearer's  benefit,  the 


550        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

American  spirit  of  humor.  Congress  may  be  in 
session  and  the  country  almost  convulsed  by 
some  grave  discussion  which  is  going  on,  never- 
theless on  the  floor  of  the  House  and  far  more  in 
the  committee-rooms  and  in  the  lobby  one  is  sure 
to  hear  the  strongest  arguments  advanced  in 
humorous  form.  They  are  called  jokes,  but  some 
new  word  should  be  coined  to  give  them  the 
dignity  which  their  usefulness  has  enabled  them 
to  attain. 

The  most  serious  man  in  appearance  in  the 
United  States,  excepting  none  of  the  early  Puritan 
divines,  was  probably  the  late  President  Lincoln. 
His  visage  was  not  only  earnest  and  solemn  but 
positively  mournful  whenever  it  was  in  repose. 
He  was  a  debater  of  high  order,  he  was  a  logician 
whom  men  who  had  held  him  in  contempt  for  his 
homely  ways  and  awkward  manner  learned  to 
respect  as  soon  as  they  crossed  verbal  swords 
with  him,  but  Lincoln's  strongest  argument  was 
always. a  joke.  He  said  and  wrote  many  things 
which  were  grand  in  their  day,  but  which  seemed 
to  have  been  entombed  in  printed  pages  and 
diplomatic  papers,  for  one  seldom  hears  them 
quoted  now-a-days ;  yet  his  jokes  still  live. 
They  are  perennial,  not  merely  those  which 
were  attributed  to  him,  but  those  which  he  really 
made.  ''  To  clinch  a  point,"  which  was  one  of 
his  own  favorite  expressions,  he  tried  the  pa- 
tience of  his  Cabinet  severely  at  times  by  per- 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  551 

sf  sting  in  joking  upon  serious  subjects — matters 
of  great  moment  at  the  time ;  and  it  is  said  upon 
good  authority  that  once  he  opened  the  Cabinet 
meeting  called  specially  with  the  hope  of  aver- 
ting great  disaster  to  the  Union  cause  by  reading 
the  last  printed  letter  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby 
on  the  Democratic  doings  at  Confederit  X  Roads, 
State  ov  Kentucky.  Before  the  meeting  was 
over,  however,  Mr.  Lincoln  read  his  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  While  Mr.  Seward,  as  able 
and  adroit  a  man  as  ever  held  the  portfolio  of 
Secretary  of  State,  would  be  wondering  how  to 
reply  to  an  annoying  committee  or  deputation 
which  had  come  from  some  one  of  the  North- 
ern States  to  instruct  the  Government  how  to 
carry  on  the  war,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  quietly  con- 
structing a  little  joke  or  recalling  one  from  his 
past  experiences  which  would  be  appropriate  to 
the  occasion,  and  after  the  joke  was  inflicted 
upon  the  committee  Mr.  Seward  was  sure  to 
find  that  his  own  carefully  prepared  speech  was 
entirely  unnecessary. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  political  circles  that 
humor  has  been  made  to  serve  the  cause  of  good 
government,  good  morals  and  the  highest  degree 
of  righteousness  in  the  United  States.  The 
members  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  are  all  practical  jokers  ;  that  is,  they  all 
are  fond  of  avoiding  a  long-winded  argument  by 
telling  a  story  illustrative  of  the  question  at 


552        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE/' 

issue.  Ministers  do  the  same.  A  meeting  of  clergy- 
men of  any  denomination  is  likely  to  result  in 
some  very  sharp  discussion  which  closely  ap- 
proaches to  ill  temper,  but  in  such  cases  some  one 
may  always  be  depended  upon  to  get  up  and  tell  a 
humorous  story  which  gives  point  to  the  proceed- 
ings, and  also  gives  them  a  new  direction  and 
acts  like  oil  upon  the  troubled  waters.  Humor 
is  tolerated  even  in  the  pulpit.  The  late  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  frequently  made  his  congregation 
laugh  on  Sunday,  and  some  of  the  newspapers 
criticised  him  severely  for  it,  but  he  seldom  lost 
a  parishioner  on  that  account,  and  thousands  of 
people — who  never  otherwise  would  have  heard 
him — were  brought  under  his  spiritual  influence 
by  appreciation  of  a  faculty  that  drew  them 
into  closer  sympathy  with  him  as  a  man.  A 
preacher  of  a  very  different  stamp,  the  Rev.  Sam 
Jones,  of  Georgia,  never  hesitates  to  tell  funny 
stories,  always  illustrative  of  his  subject,  while 
delivering  his  talks,  and  Sam  addresses  larger 
congregations  than  any  other  American  preacher 
of  the  present  time. 

Humor  makes  its  way  everywhere  in  the 
United  States.  Newspapers  are  full  of  it,  and 
the  most  high-toned  and  serious  of  them  find  it 
necessary  to  supply  their  readers  with  jokes.  A 
New  Yorker  recently  held  a  neighbor  to  account 
for  reading  habitually  a  very  serious  and  almost 
bilious  daily  newspaper.  "  I  don't  read  it  much," 


AMERICAN    HUMOR.  553 

said  he,  "  but  I  buy  it  because  its  funny  column 
contains  a  better  assortment  of  jokes  than  any 
other  paper  in  the  city."  The  principal  editorial 
writer  of  a  large  New  York  daily  paper,  a  paper 
of  wide  circulation  and  great  influence,  once  com- 
plained to  the  managing  editor  that  all  the  point 
of  a  leading  article  to  which  he  had  devoted  two 
days  of  thought  had  been  expressed  in  the 
paragraph  column  by  a  joke  one  line  long. 

The  public  meeting  is  the  truest,  the  fairest 
expression  of  American  opinion  in  any  given 
locality,  but  in  the  public  meeting  it  is  always  the 
humorist  who  sways  the  audience  and  carries  the 
day.  He  may  be  one  of  the  stated  speakers,  a 
man  of  great  wisdom  and  force,  for  wisdom  and 
wit  are  closely  allied  in  the  American  nature, 
however  the  celebrated  couplet  of  the  late  Alex- 
ander Pope  about  "  great  wit  and  madness  "  may 
seem  to  indicate  the  contrary.  In  the  great 
political  discussions,  now  historic,  which  once 
were  conducted  by  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Senator 
Douglas,  when  both  were  comparatively  young 
men,  and  the  Democratic  champion  got  his 
adversary  into  a  corner,  as  occasionally  rje  did, 
Lincoln  always  got  out  of  his  predicament  with 
a  joke — never  with  an  argument — and  the  audi- 
ence never  failed  to  see  the  point.  This  shows 
the  universality  of  the  American  sense  of  humor. 
In  any  other  country  of  the  world  the  peasantry, 
who  are  the  nearest  possible  parallel  to  the 


554        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

farmers  of  America,  are  stupid  and  dull  of  com- 
prehension, but  an  American  crowd,  no  matter 
how  far  away  from  the  centres  of  civilization,  nor 
how  solemn,  and  serious,  and  weary,  and  dull  of 
comprehension  their  faces  may  seem,  can  always 
be  depended  upon  to  take  the  point  of  a  joke. 
They  are  equally  quick  to  resent  an  attempt  at 
humor  which  is  not  correctly  and  sharply  pointed. 
They  are  all  humorists  themselves.  Get  a  seat 
on  the  wagon  of  a  farmer  driving  along  a  country 
road  and  engage  the  man  in  conversation,  and 
you  will  hear  more  sharp,  pithy,  humorous  say- 
ings than  you  are  apt  to  get  from  any  professed 
wit  in  polite  society.  Let  the  man  meet  a  brother 
farmer  coming  from  the  opposite  direction,  and, 
although  the  conversation  will  naturally  turn  on 
the  crops,  and  the  taxes,  and  local  government, 
and  family  or  individual  misfortunes,  the  conver- 
sation is  sure  to  be  spiced  with  humor.  In  other 
countries  it  seems  to  require  a  jolly  fellow,  a  man 
of  high  spirits,  to  say  funny  things  ;  but  here,  if 
you  chance  not  to  expect  the  man  of  solemn  vis- 
age, the  man  bowed  down  with  care,  to  break 
out  humorously,  you  are  sure  to  be  agreeably 
disappointed. 

Even  in  stated  religious  meetings  this  quality 
of  the  American  nature  frequently  displays  itself 
unexpectedly,  but  always  with  effect.  As  solemn 
and  religious  gathering  as  can  be  seen  in  the 
United  States  is  the  camp-meeting  in  the  far 


AMERICAN    HUMOR.  555 

West,  where  people  come  from  many  miles 
around  to  listen  to  the  only  form  of  religious 
service  which  they  have  the  privilege  of  attend- 
ing. The  sermons  and  prayers  are  intensely 
earnest.  The  speakers  have  an  immense  sense 
of  responsibility  of  the  duties  incumbent  upon 
them,  but  in  sermon,  and  even  sometimes  in 
prayer,  expressions  break  forth  which  show  that 
in  no  circumstances  can  the  native  American  be 
free  from  the  domination  of  his  sense  of  humor. 
The  most  powerful  individual  influence  that  ever 
existed  in  the  Western  camp-meetings,  according 
to  historians  sacred  and  profane,  was  a  man 
named  Peter  Cartright,  a  Methodist  preacher. 
He  would  move  audiences  to  tears  and  sometimes 
to  groans  by  the  eloquence  and  earnestness  of 
his  preaching,  yet  suddenly,  at  the  most  unex- 
pected times,  he  would  say  things  that  would 
put  his  entire  congregation  into  paroxysms  of 
laughter.  The  purpose  of  the  meeting  never 
was  disturbed  by  these  discursive  efforts.  They 
were  as  much  to  the  point  as  the  most  earnest 
statements  and  exhortations  which  he  had  pre- 
viously made,  and  were  entirely  in  keeping  with 
the  general  intentions  of  the  service. 

Passing  from  conversation  to  printed  utter- 
ances, it  may  be  safely  said  that  the  humorous 
writings  of  Americans  have  been  more  read  than 
any  other  literature  which  has  appeared  from  our 
press.  We  have  many  able  editors  in  the  United 


556        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

States,  but  those  most  read  are  those  who  say 
the  funniest  things.  There  never  was  a  more 
influential  editor  in  the  United  States  than  the 
late  George  D.  Prentice,  who  for  a  long  time 
managed  the  newspaper  which  now  is  the  Louis- 
ville Courier-Journal.  Prentice  was  a  Whig,  but 
probably  half  of  his  readers  were  Democrats. 
They  didn't  like  his  politics,  but  they  couldn't 
get  along  without  his  fun.  His  paper  was  pub- 
lished in  a  Southern  State,  a  slave  State,  but 
more  than  half  of  its  circulation  was  in  the  free 
States  of  the  North.  While  Prentice  lived  there 
was  scarcely  a  post-office  in  the  Mississippi  or 
Ohio  Valley  which  did  not  receive  copies  of  it  by 
mail.  Its  influence  extended  as  far  North  as 
Chicago  and  the  North-western  States,  and  the 
local  paper  which  didn't  repeat  his  humorous 
bits  was  likely  to  be  informed  by  its  readers  that 
there  must  be  a  reform  in  that  direction.  For 
many  years  the  most  popular  portion  of  the  very 
good  editorial  page  of  one  of  the  most  prominent 
daily  papers  of  New  York  was  its  humorous 
editorial.  The  topics  of  the  writer  were  seldom 
those  of  the  great  interests  of  the  day,  yet  people 
read  it,  turned  to  it  the  first  thing,  talked  about 
it  to  their  friends,  compelled  them  to  read  it,  and 
felt  lost  when  the  writer  of  those  articles  was 
transferred  to  a  different  field  of  labor. 

We  have  some  popular  poets  in  the  United 
States,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  works  of 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  557 

any  of  them  have  been  as  much  read  as  Mr. 
Lowell's  "  Bigelow  Papers."  Mr.  Lowell  is  no 
mean  poet  himself;  there  are  critics  who  insist 
that  he  has  not  an  equal  among  American  versi- 
fiers, but  the  humorous  verses  just  alluded  to 
have  made  him  better  known  than  all  of  his  more 
serious  efforts,  and  it  is  believed  by  intelligent 
men  of  all  parties  that  it  had  immense  effect  in 
bringing  about  the  political  changes  which  im- 
mediately preceded  the  late  civil  war. 

During  the  civil  war  there  were  many  editors 
who  used  to  say,  with  some  evidence  of  annoy- 
ance, that  they  wished  they  could  be  read  as  much 
as  Nasby .  Nasby  was  an  Ohio  editor  who  invented 
a  scene  and  some  characters  in  the  South,  and 
wrote  about  them  so  persistently  and  with  such 
a  realistic  air  that  his  effusions  were  copied 
regularly  in  almost  all  of  the  Republican  papers 
of  the  land.  Another  man  who  was  more  read 
than  any  editor  of  the  day  was  Artemas  Ward. 
He  did  not  go  into  politics  to  any  great  extent, 
but  what  he  did  say  was  so  accurately  satirical 
that  nearly  everybody  read  it  and  was  the  wiser 
for  it.  The  mistakes  of  our  generals,  the  blun- 
ders of  our  government  and  the  crimes  of  many 
of  our  contractors  were  the  subject  of  a  great 
deal  of  vigorous  editorial  writing,  but  no  one  sue- 
ceeded  in  bringing  them  so  forcibly  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public  as  a  wit  who  wrote  under  the 
nom  de  plume  of  Orpheus  C.  K"err.  During  the 


558        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

same  period  there  were  facts  in  the  local  history 
of  New  York  extremely  uncomplimentary  to  one 
great  political  party,  and  the  opposing  party  lost 
no  opportunity  to  disclose  them  and  criticise  them 
in  editorial  columns  and  news  columns,  but  one 
man  was  more  read  than  all  others  combined. 
It  was  the  man  who  wrote  the  satire  entitled 
"The  New  Gospel  of  Peace,"  in  which  the 
doings  of  the  alleged  Peace  Party  were  set  forth 
in  humorous  style. 

At  the  present  time  the  men  whose  writings 
are  most  read  are  not  the  historians,  editors, 
essayists,  or  even  novelists.  They  are  the  hu- 
morists. Bill  Nye  is  more  read  than  any  novelist 
in  the  United  States.  So  is  James  Whitcomb 
Riley.  In  Chicago  there  are  a  number  of  able 
journalists,  but  the  one  most  quoted  by  name 
not  only  in  his  own  city  but  throughout  the 
Union  is  Eugene  Field,  whose  humor  finds  no 
subject  too  great  or  too  small  to  dwell  upon.  A 
little  while  ago  an  edition  de  htxe  of  his  humor- 
ous prose  and  verse  was  published  at  a  very  high 
price,  and  some  of  the  later  would-be  subscribers 
found  to  their  disgust  that  the  list  was  full  and 
no  more  books  could  be  supplied.  Is  there  any 
poet  or  novelist  in  the  United  States  who  has  had 
a  commercial  experience  like  this  ? 

Mr.  John  Hay,  once  a  Secretary  of  President 
Lincoln,  and  afterward  a  hard-working  journalist, 
is  also  a  poet,  and  has  perpetrated  some  graceful 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  559 

verses,  but  when  any  one  offers  to  quote  a  bit  from 
John  Hay,  the  hearers  always  understand  that  it 
will  be  something  humorous.  His  dialect  poems 
do  not  exceed  half-a-dozen,  yet  they  seem  as 
popular  now  as  when  first  written  twenty  years 
ago.  They  were  not  carefully  elaborated ;  the 
author  is  said  to  have  dashed  them  off  in  a  hurry 
as  a  relief  from  hard  editorial  work,  but  they 
struck  the  popular  heart  at  once,  probably  be- 
cause, like  most  other  American  humor,  there 
was  a  basis  of  seriousness  and  sense  to  them. 
The  finale  of  his  poem,  "Little  Breeches," — a 
poetic  story  of  a  lost  child  who  was  saved,  as  his 
father  supposed,  by  angels,  will  long  be  the  most 
popular  and  effective  protest  against  formal  re- 
ligious ideas.  He  says  of  the  angels : 

"I  think  that  savin'  a  little  child 

And  bringin'  him  back  to  his  own 
Is  a  durn  sight  better  bizness 
Than  loafin'  round  the  throne." 

Was  there  ever  a  greater  commercial  success 
in  literature  than  that  achieved  by  Mark  Twain  ? 
The  combined  books  of  the  most  successful 
American  novelist  have  not  sold  as  many  copies 
as  one  of  Mark  Twain's  books.  Why  ?  Because 
Mark  Twain  is  funny — because  he  knows  how  to 
say  something  in  a  way  in  which  nobody  else 
has  said  it.  Scores  of  other  men  have  written 
about  the  Holy  Land  and  our  own  West,  but  it 
was  not  until  "  Innocents  Abroad  "  and  "  Rough- 


560  "  MY   COUNTRY,    'TIS   OF  THEE." 

ing  It  "  appeared  that  people  in  general  began  to 
manifest  a  lively  interest  in  these  portions  of  the 
world.  Innumerable  sketches  have  been  written 
about  life  on  the  Mississippi  River  in  the  old 
days  before  railroads  and  emancipation,  but  all 
of  them  combined  did  not  "  catch  "  the  public  as 
successfully  as  "  Huckleberry  Finn."  The  latter 
was  humorous,  the  others  were  not ;  there  was  no 
other  point  of  difference. 

It  does  not  matter,  to  the  American  people, 
from  where  humor  comes,  so  it  really  is  humor- 
ous and  has  point  to  it.  We  will  take  it  in  any 
shape  or  dialect.  One  of  the  great  successes  of 
humorous  literature  during  the  civil  war  was 
that  achieved  by  Col.  Charles  G.  Halpine,  who 
made  a  mythical  Irish  soldier,  "  Private  Miles 
O'Reilly,"  his  mouthpiece  for  a  lot  of  humorous 
criticisms  of  the  Government,  the  army  and 
navy.  During  the  same  period  there  arose  a 
Southerner,  signing  himself  "Bill  Arp,"  who 
made  some  hard  hits,  in  humorous  style,  at  the 
North ;  somehow  they  found  their  way  through 
the  lines  and  were  freely  reprinted  at  the  North. 
In  later  years  another  Southerner — the  creator 
of  "  Uncle  Remus,"  put  a  lot  of  delightful  stories 
into  negro  dialect,  and  a  host  of  people  at  once 
began  to  quote  them.  In  New  York  Mr.  Julian 
Ralph  wrote  a  lot  of  humorous  sketches  under 
the  general  head  of  "  The  German  Barber,"  and 
the  newspaper  press  began  to  quote  them. 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  561 

Across  the  ocean  Max  O'Rell  began  to  satirize 
the  English  people  and  customs,  and  straightway 
his  books  sold  better  here  than  abroad. 

On  the  stage  and  platform,  as  everywhere  else, 
humor  is  the  most  popular  and  attractive  feat- 
ure. A  few  years  ago,  before  the  theatrical 
companies  could  easily  reach  any  city  or  large 
town,  the  lecture  was  a  favorite  means  of  enter- 
tainment, and  more  than  three  hundred  Ameri- 
cans and  foreigners  were  busy  every  winter  in 
hurrying  from  town  to  town  to  deliver  lectures. 
The  three  hundred  have  been  reduced  almost  to 
three,  but  there  is  room  there  still  for  any  one 
who  has  anything  humorous  to  say.  "  Bob  " 
Burdette,  more  popularly  known  as  "  The  Bur- 
lington Hawk-eye  Man"  works  himself  almost 
to  death  every  winter  in  going  all  over  the 
United  States  to  give  his  humorous  recitations. 
He  is  a  very  religious  man,  and  a  working  Bap- 
tist, but  people  never  ask  him  for  a  religious  ad- 
dress :  they  always  want  to  hear  his  fun.  An- 
other of  the  few  successful  men  remaining  on 
the  platform  is  A.  P.  Burbank,  a  man  who  for 
ten  years  has  determined  every  year  to  go  upon 
the  stage  in  legitimate  comedy,  but  so  humorous 
are  his  recitations  and  so  effective  his  manner  in 
delivering  them  that  those  who  have  heard  him 
before  insist  upon  hearing  him  more,  and  he 
goes  again  and  again  to  towns  where  he  has  been 
a  dozen  times  before,  each  time  to  find  his  audi- 

30 


562        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

eiice  larger  and  more  appreciative,  and  each  time 
to  receive  the  assurance  that  they  will  want  him 
again  the  following  winter.  Little  Marshal 
Wilder,  who  never  took  a  lesson  in  elocution  in 
his  life,  and  has  been  cruelly  handicapped  by 
nature,  attempts  merely  to  make  people  laugh ; 
he  succeeds,  so  he  seldom  is  allowed  to  have 
an  evening  to  himself,  and  when  the  "platform  " 
season  is  ended  here  goes  over  to  England  and 
has  three  or  four  engagements  a  night. 

Everybody  knows  that  on  the  stage  humor 
takes  better  than  anything  else.  There  may  be 
a  great  tragedy  well  presented  on  the  boards  of 
a  city  theatre,  or  a  brilliant  spectacle,  or  a  so- 
called  emotional  drama  which  appeals  to  every- 
thing improper  in  human  nature,  but  the  theatre 
which  is  presenting  a  good  comedy  can  always 
depend  upon  holding  its  own.  No  dead-head 
seats  are  to  be  had  at  such  theatres.  The  man- 
ager can  always  depend  upon  getting  money  for 
all  the  room  at  his  disposal.  The  fun  may  be 
very  rough,  sometimes  it  is  decidedly  vulgar,  but 
people  ask  as  few  questions  and  make  as  few 
protests  against  fun,  no  matter  what  its  kind, 
as  drunkards  do  against  the  quality  of  their 
whiskey. 

American  appreciation  of  humor  may  be  found 
also  in  the  number  and  wide  circulation  of 
periodicals  devoted  entirely  to  fun.  There  used 
to  be  a  theory  that  there  was  no  room  for  a 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  563 

humorous  paper  in  the  United  States  because 
the  ordinary  dailies  and  weeklies  indulged  in  so 
much  fun  themselves.  But  after  the  enormous 
success  of  Puck,  Judge,  Life,  and  some  other 
periodicals,  it  is  useless  to  argue  any  longer  on 
the  subject.  After  a  political  or  social  question 
has  been  apparently  worn  threadbare  in  editorials 
and  essays,  out  comes  one  of  these  papers  with  a 
pithy  saying  or  a  good  cartoon  that  carries  more 
influence  than  all  the  serious  talk  combined.  It 
matters  little  upon  which  side  of  the  question, 
even  in  politics,  these  professional  humorists  are 
found.  Their  hits  when  well  made  are  cheer- 
fully acknowledged  even  by  their  own  enemies. 
During  the  palmy  days  of  the  New  York  ring, 
Mr.  Nast,  the  cartoonist  of  Harpers  Weekly,  was 
offered  an  annual  allowance  several  times  larger 
than  his  salary  if  he  would  give  up  work  entirely 
and  go  abroad.  Humor  and  high  character  are 
often  allied  ;  one  of  the  strongest  illustrations  of 
the  fact  is  that  Mr.  Nast  without  any  hesitation 
refused  this  valuable  offer.  Some  of  the  abuses 
of  local  government  in  New  York  have  been  more . 
effectually  fought  by  Mr.  Keppler  and  his  associ- 
ate artists  in  F*uck  than  by  all  the  work  of  editors, 
lawyers  and  judges.  Puck's  influence  in  politics 
became  so  great  that  before  the  last  Presidential 
campaign  began  it  became  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  party  which  it  was  fighting  to  start  a 
humorous  pictorial  journal  of  their  own,  and  it 


564  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

was  quite  safe  to  suppose  that  it  was  influential 
in  the  political  results  that  followed. 

A  delightful  thing  about  humorous  writings  is 
that  no  one  seems  jealous  of  their  influence  or 
afraid  to  give  them  greater  prominence.  The 
only  complaint  which  the  publishers  of  the 
humorous  weeklies  have  to  make  against  their 
brethren  of  the  daily  press  is,  that  their  own 
circulation  might  be  better  were  not  so  many 
of  their  good  things  promptly  reprinted  every- 
where. No  sooner  does  one  of  these  papers  come 
from  the  press  than  its  best  sayings  are  scissored 
and  reprinted  in  a  thousand  or  more  papers. 
Almost  any  daily  paper  of  large  circulation  seems 
to  think  it  necessary  to  have  a  humorist  of  its 
own.  They  pay  more  for  humorous  contributions 
than  for  any  other  class  of  matter,  and  all  of  them 
are  more  keenly  on  the  look-out  for  a  new 
humorist  than  for  a  possible  Presidential  can- 
didate. The  readers  of  the  daily  press  quote  for 
one  another  the  funny  sayings  of  their  favorite 
paper  long  before  they  think  of  mentioning  the 
other  contents ;  indeed,  most  of  them  are  so 
absorbed  by  the  fun  that  they  don't  seem  to  have 
remembered  anything  else. 

We  cannot  possibly  overestimate  the  value  of 
our  national  faculty  of  seeing  the  humorous  side 
of  things.  It  keeps  us  from  making  ourselves 
ridiculous ;  it  prevents  us,  both  as  individuals 
and  a  people,  from  being  laughed  at  for  anything 


AMERICAN   HUMOR.  565 

we  may  do  in  sober  earnest.  It  is  very  hard,  in 
this  day  and  land,  for  any  man,  society,  party  or 
church  to  be  a  fool  without  hearing  about  it  in  a 
good-natured  way  that  robs  the  rebuke  of  its 
sting.  It  is  not  so  in  other  countries. 

But  our  sense  of  humor  does  still  more  for  us. 
It  smooths  numberless  rough  places  in  the  path- 
way of  a  people  whose  road  is  not  easy  to  travel. 
It  averts  many  a  quarrel,  closes  dangerous 
breaches,  and  is  balm  to  wounds  that  otherwise 
would  smart.  It  is  almost  always  harmless. 
There  are  men  and  women  whose  fun  always 
lingers  upon  incidents  that  are  vulgar,  but  this  is 
a  fault  of  perverted  minds — not  of  the  humorous 
spirit.  It  is  a  better  introduction,  between 
strangers,  than  any  letter  or  form  of  words,  and 
it  expresses  much  in  little,  doing  it  more  effec- 
tively than  any  of  the  wise  saws  and  proverbs 
of  more  serious  races.  It  seems  irrepressible 
and  omnipresent ;  a  man  or  woman  may  be  too 
tired  or  sick  to  reason  or  to  think,  but  whoever 
saw  an  American  too  weary  to  see  the  point  of  a 
joke  or  to  offer  another  in  return  ?  We  need  to 
preserve  our  humor  almost  as  carefully  as  if  it 
were  our  character,  for  should  we  ever  lose  it  our 
character  will  be  the  worse  for  the  change. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION. 

AMERICA  has  more  colleges,  so  called,  than  all 
the  other  civilized  nations  combined. 

These  institutions  of  learning  are  not  results 
of  accident,  or  accretions  of  church  reverences 
and  purposes,  like  the  great  universities  of  older 
lands.  Most  of  them  were  founded  and  have 
been  maintained  by  the  people  at  large,  and  these, 
until  recent  times,  were  very  poor.  They  are 
testimonials  to  the  level-head  and  tenacity  of  pur- 
pose of  the  American  people.  Says  President 
Oilman*,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University : 

"  That  tenacity  of  purpose  with  which  a  few 
settlers  in  the  wilderness  held  on  to  the  idea  of  a 
liberal  education,  in  spite  of  their  scanty  crops 
and  scantier  libraries,  their  wide  separation  from 
the  old-world  seats  of  learning,  and  their  lack  of 
professional  teachers,  is  one  of  the  noblest  of 
many  noble  traits  possessed  by  our  forefathers, 
who  were  never  so  weary  or  so  poor  that  they 
could  not  keep  alive  the  altar-fires  in  the  temples 
of  religion  and  of  learning.  Their  primitive  founda- 
tions did  not  depend  on  royal  bounty  or  on  feudal 
566  J 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  567 

liens ;  they  were  supported  by  free-will  offerings 
from  men  and  women  in  moderate  circumstances } 
by  the  minister's  savings  and  the  widow's  portion. 
It  is  only  within  the  present  generation  that  large 
donations  have  reached  their  coffers.  The  good 
and  the  bad  we  inherit  in  our  collegiate  systems 
were  alike  developed  in  the  straitened  school  of 
necessity. 

"The  founders  of  the  original  colleges  were 
not  only  high-minded  and  self-sacrificing,  but 
they  were  devoted  to  an  ideal.  They  believed  in 
the  doctrine  that  intellectual  power  is  worth  more 
than  intellectual  acquisitions  ;  that  an  education 
of  all  the  mental  faculties  is  better  for  the  hap- 
piness of  individual  scholars  and  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  community  than  a  narrow  training 
for  a  special  pursuit.  Accordingly,  tneir  educa- 
tional system  did  not  begin  with  professional 
seminaries,  for  the  special  training  of  any  one 
class,  but  with  schools  of  general  culture,  colleges 
of  the  liberal  arts,  as  good  as  could  be  made  with 
their  resources  and  in  that  age.  Instead  of  an 
academic  staff  made  up  of  those  who  professed 
to  teach  some  special  branch  of  knowledge,  these 
colleges  had  a  master  and  fellows  (or  tutors), 
men  who  were  fit  to  teach  others  those  rudiments 
of  higher  learning  in  which  they  had  themselves 
been  taught.  Moreover,  as  years  rolled  on, 
instead  of  concentrating  personal  and  pecuniary 
support  upon  a  few  of  the  oldest  and  most 


568  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF   THEE." 

promising  foundations,  far-sighted  men  built  up 
in  every  portion  of  the  land  colleges  correspond- 
ing in  their  principal  features  with  the  original 
foundations,  and  depending  for  maintenance  on 
the  beneficence  of  individuals. 

"  The  history  of  the  colonial  foundations 
abounds  in  examples  of  the  wisdom  and  self- 
sacrifice  with  which  they  were  conducted  under 
circumstances  which  called  for  devotion  to  a  lofty 
ideal.  No  one  can  study  the  biography  of  their 
graduates  without  discovering  that  they  were  the 
men  who  moulded  the  institutions  of  this  country. 
It  is  easy  to  point  out  deficiencies  in  these 
academic  organizations,  as  it  is  to  criticise  the 
defects  of  the  emigrants'  cabins  and  the  foresters' 
paths ;  it  is  easy  to  lament  that  a  deeper  impres- 
sion was  n6t  made  upon  the  scholarship  of  the 
world;  easy  to  mention  influential  men  who 
never  passed  a  day  within  college  walls  ;  easy  to 
provoke  a  smile,  a  sneer,  or  a  censure  by  the 
record  of  some  narrow-minded  custom  or  pro- 
ceeding. But,  nevertheless,  the  fact  cannot  be 
shaken  that  the  old  American  colleges  have  been 
admirable  places  for  the  training  of  men.  Let 
the  roll  of  graduates  of  any  leading  institution 
be  scrutinized,  or  even  the  record  of  a  single  class 
selected  at  random,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
number  of  life  failures  is  very  small,  and  the 
number  of  useful,  intelligent,  high-minded  and 
upright  careers  very  large,  It  may,  therefore, 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  569 

be  said  that  the  traditional  college,  though 
commonly  hampered  by  ancient  conditions  and 
by  the  lack  of  funds  with  which  to  attain  its  own 
ideal,  has  remained  the  firm  and  valiant  sup- 
porter of  liberal  culture,  and  that  any  revolu- 
tionary or  rabid  changes  in  its  organization  or 
methods  should  be  carefully  watched.  Neverthe- 
less, as  we  proceed,  it  will  be  evident  that  changes 
are  inevitable  and  that  most  desirable  improve- 
ments are  in  progress.  The  child  is  becoming  a 


man." 


But  we  need  more  concentration  of  effort, 
money  and  good  men,  both  as  instructors  and 
students,  in  colleges  where  the  highest  educa- 
tion may  be  obtained.  The  great  number  of  our 
colleges  is  a  source  of  weakness — not  of  strength. 
A  great  number  of  these  institutions  are  mere 
academies,  and  seem  to  have  been  founded  princi- 
pally to  keep  students  within  the  denominational 
fences  of  their  parents ;  the  college  is  charged 
with  what  should  be  the  special  work  of  parent 
and  pastor.  Says  President  Oilman : 

"  Every  important  Christian  denomination  has 
come  to  have  its  distinctive  college,  and  many  an 
argument  has  been  framed  to  prove  that  sectarian 
colleges  are  better  than  those  which  seek  to  pro- 
mote the  union  of  several  religious  bodies.  It 
has  not  been  thought  sufficient  that  a  college 
should  be  pervaded  by  an  enlightened  Christian- 
ity, nor  even  that  it  should  be  the  stronghold  of 


570  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

a  simple  evangelical  life  and  doctrine,  nor  that  it 
should  be  orthodox  as  to  the  fundamental  teach- 
ings of  the  Church ;  but  sectarian  influences 
must  everywhere  predominate,  among  the  trustees 
or  in  the  faculty,  or  in  both  the  governing  bodies. 
Hence  we  see  all  over  the  land  feeble,  ill-endowed 
and  poorly  manned  institutions,  caring  a  little  for 
sound  learning,  but  a  great  deal  more  for  the 
defence  of  denominational  tenets." 

President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  thus  indicates  the 
results  of  this  spirit,  added  to  another  which  is 
still  less  pardonable : 

"  In  the  absence  of  an  established  church,  or 
of  a  dominant  sect  in  the  United  States,  denomi- 
national zeal  has  inevitably  tended  to  scatter 
even  those  scanty  resources  which  in  two  cen- 
turies have  become  available  for  the  higher  edu- 
cation ;  and  this  lamentable  dissipation  has  been 
increased  by  the  local  pride  of  States,  cities  and 
neighborhoods,  and  the  desire  of  many  persons, 
who  had  money  to  apply  to  public  uses,  to  found 
new  institutions  rather  than  to  contribute  to  those 
already  established — a  desire  not  unnatural  in  a 
new  country,  where  love  of  the  old  and  venerable 
in  institutions  has  but  j  ust  sprung  up.  In  short, 
the  different  social,  political  and  religious  con- 
ditions of  this  country  have,  thus  far,  quite  pre- 
vented the  development  of  commanding  universi- 
ties like  those  of  the  mother-country." 

As  the  greater  colleges  increase  in  financial 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  571 

and  intellectual  strength,  the  weaker  ones  must 
either  drop  out  of  existence,  or  be  satisfied  to  im- 
part merely  the  high-school  course  of  instruction, 
and  prepare  their  more  aspiring  pupils  to  enter 
colleges  worthy  of  the  name.  Ex-President 
White,  of  Cornell  University,  foreshadows  their 
future  as  follows : 

"  Our  country  has  already  not  far  short  of 
four  hundred  colleges  and  universities  more  or 
less  worthy  of  those  names,  besides  a  vast  num- 
ber of  high-schools  and  academies  quite  as 
worthy  to  be  called  colleges  or  universities  as 
many  which  bear  those  titles.  But  the  system 
embracing  all  these  has  by  no  means  reached  its 
final  form.  Probably  in  its  more  complete  de- 
velopment the  stronger  institutions,  to  the  num- 
ber of  twenty  or  thirty,  will,  within  a  generation 
or  two,  become  universities  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  restricting  themselves  to  university 
work;  beginning,  perhaps,  at  the  studies  now 
usually  undertaken  in  the  junior  year  of  our 
colleges,  and  carrying  them  on  through  the 
senior  year,  with  two  or  three  years  of  special  or 
professional  study  afterward.  The  best  of  the 
others  will  probably  accept  their  mission  as  col- 
leges in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  beginning 
the  course  two  years  earlier  than  at  present,  and 
continuing  it  to  what  is  now  the  junior  year. 
Thus  they  will  do  a  work  intermediate  between 
the  general  school  system  of  the  country  and  the 


572  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

universities,  a  work  which  can  be  properly  called 
collegiate,  a  work  the  need  of  which  is  now  sorely 
felt,  and  which  is  most  useful  and  honorable. 
Such  an  organization  will  give  us  as  good  a 
system  as  the  world  has  ever  seen,  probably  the 
best  system." 

There  is  no  lack  of  money  for  institutions  of 
learning  which  show  special  aptitude  in  any 
direction.  A  belief  in  thorough  education  is 
common  to  almost  all  progressive  men,  whether 
they  themselves  are  college  graduates  or  "  self- 
made"  men.  President  White,  after  naming 
many  men  who  have  given  largely  to  different 
colleges,  says  : 

"  Such  a  tide  of  generosity  bursting  forth  from 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  strong  and  shrewd  men 
who  differ  so  widely  from  each  other  in  residence 
and  ideas,  yet  flowing  in  one  direction,  means 
something.  What  is  it  ?  At  the  source  of  it 
lies,  doubtless,  a  perception  of  duty  to  the  coun- 
try and  a  feeling  of  pride  in  the  country's  glory. 
United  with  this  is,  naturally,  more  or  less  of  an 
honorable  personal  ambition ;  but  this  is  not  all ; 
strong  common  sense  has  done  much  to  create  the 
current  and  still  more  to  shape  its  course.  For, 
as  to  the  origin  of  this  stream,  the  wealthy 
American  knows  perfectly  that  the  laws  of  his 
country  favor  the  dispersion  of  inherited  wealth 
rather  than  its  retention ;  that  in  two  or  three 
generations  at  most  his  descendants,  no  matter 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  57B 

how  large  their  inheritance,  must  come  to  the 
level  determined  by  their  character  and  ability  ; 
that  their  character  and  ability  are  most  likely  to 
be  injured,  and  therefore  the  level  to  which  they 
subside  lowered,  by  an  inheritance  so  large  as  to 
engender  self-indulgence  ;  that  while,  in  Great 
Britain,  the  laws  and  customs  of  primogeniture 
and  entail  enable  men  of  vast  wealth  to  tie  up 
their  property,  and  so  to  found  families,  this,  in 
America,  is  impossible ;  and  that  though  the 
tendency  toward  the  equalization  of  fortunes  may 
sometimes  be  retarded,  it  cannot  be  prevented. 

"  So,  too,  as  to  the  direction  of  the  stream ; 
this  same  common  sense  has  given  its  main 
channel.  These  great  donors  have  recog- 
nized the  fact  that  the  necessity  for  universal 
primary  education  will  always  be  seen,  and  can 
be  adequately  provided  for,  only  by  the  people  as 
a  whole ;  but  that  the  necessity  for  that  ad- 
vanced education  which  can  alone  vivify  and 
energize  the  whole  school  system,  drawing  a  rich 
life  up  through  it,  sending  a  richer  life  down 
through  it,  will  rarely  be  provided  for,  save  by 
the  few  men  wise  enough  to  understand  a  great 
national  system  of  education,  and  strong  enough 
efficiently  to  aid  it. 

"  It  is,  then,  plain,  good  sense  which  has  led 
mainly  to  the  development  of  a  munificence  such 
as  no  other  land  has  seen  ;  therefore  it  is  that  the 
long  list  of  men  who  have  thus  distinguished 


574        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

themselves  and  their  country  is  steadily  growing 
longer." 

But  in  opposition  to  the  spirit  which  founded 
and  has  supported  our  many  institutions  of 
learning  there  has  arisen  a  pestilent  theory, 
born  of  the  sudden  increase  of  wealth  and  love  of 
luxury,  that  no  education  is  worth  anything 
which  does  not  enable  a  man  to  make  more  money 
and  make  it  easier  than  his  neighbor  who  has 
had  no  liberal  schooling.  Because  technical 
schools — of  which  the  more  we  have  the  better 
off  we  will  be — teach  men  to  use  their  wits  about 
many  practical  things,  there  seems  to  be  prev- 
alent a  stupid  notion  that  material  things  are  all 
there  are  of  life,  and  that  sentiments,  principles 
and  aspirations  are  not  worth  cultivating.  Such 
stuff  might  do  if  we  were  a  nation  of  shopkeepers, 
but  we  are  not  that  kind  of  people.  For  each 
man  who  is  thinking  and  caring  only  for  money 
and  what  it  will  bring  him  are  half  a  dozen 
earnest,  clear-headed  people  who  know  that  all 
human  needs  are  not  satisfied  when  the  stomach 
is  full  and  the  senses  satiated. 

In  a  recent  and  admirable  address  to  a  college 
society  Bishop  Potter  fairly  stated  and  answered 
the  current  sneer  at  the  higher  education,  as  fol- 
lows : 

'We  are  met  by  a  spirit  which  it  is  time,  I 
think,  that  we  recognize,  as  there  is  a  need  that 
it  should  be  challenged.  We  Americans  are,  of 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  575 

all  peoples  under  the  sun,  supremely  a  practical 
people.  No  mechanism  is  invented,  no  book  is 
written,  no  theory  is  propounded,  but  that 
straightway  there  is  heard  a  voice  demanding: 
'  Well,  this  is  all  very  interesting,  very  novel, 
very  eloquent ;  but  what,  after  all,  is  the  good  of 
it?  To  what  contrivance,  to  what  enterprise 
can  you  hitch  this  discovery,  this  vision  of  yours, 
and  make  it  work  ?  How  will  it  push,  pull, 
pump,  lift,  drive,  bore,  so  that,  employed  thus,  it 
may  be  a  veritable  producer?  Yes,  we  want 
learning  for  our  young  men,  our  young  women  ; 
but  how  can  it  be  converted  by  the  shortest  road 
and  in  the  most  effectual  way  into  a  marketable 
product  ?  '  '  The  man  of  the  North/  says  De 
Tocqueville,  writing  of  our  North,  '  has  not 
only  experience,  but  knowledge.  He,  however, 
does  not  care  for  science  as  a  pleasure,  and  only 
embraces  it  with  avidity  when  it  leads  to  useful 
applications.'  And  the  worst  of  such  an  in- 
dictment is  the  fact  that  it  is  still  so  often  true. 

"  The  conditions  of  this  generation  demand 
that  we  should  be  reminded  that,  beyond  bodies 
to  be  clothed,  and  tastes  to  be  cultivated,  and 
wealth  to  be  accumulated,  there  is  in  each  one 
of  us  an  intellect  to  be  developed  and,  by  means 
of  it,  truth  to  be  discerned,  which,  beside  all 
other  undertakings  to  which  the  mind  of  man 
can  bend  itself,  should  forever  be  foremost  and 
supreme.  The  gratification  of  our  physical 


576        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

wants,  and  next  to  that  the  gratification  of  our 
personal  vanity  or  ambition,  may  seem  to  many 
people  at  once  the  chief  end  of  existence  and  the 
secret  of  the  truest  happiness.  But  there  have 
been  men  who  have  neither  sought  nor  cared  for 
these  things,  who  have  found  in  learning  for  its 
own  sake  at  once  their  sweetest  rewards  and 
their  highest  dignity. 

'  The  vocation  of  the  scholar  of  our  time  be- 
comes most  plain.  He  is  to  take  his  stand  and 
to  make  his  protest.  With  a  dignity  and  a  reso- 
lution born  of  the  greatness  of  his  calling  and 
his  opportunity,  he  is  to  spurn  that  low  estimate 
of  his  work  and  its  result  which  measures  them 
by  what  they  have  earned  in  money  or  can  pro- 
duce in  dividends.  Here,  in  his  counting-room 
or  his  warehouse,  sits  the  plutocrat  who  has 
amassed  his  millions,  and  who  can  forecast  the 
fluctuations  of  the  market  with  the  unerring 
accuracy  of  an  aneroid  barometer.  To  such  a 
one  conies  the  professor  from  some  modest  seat 
of  learning  among  the  hills,  minded  to  see  his 
old  classmate  of  other  days,  to  grasp  his  hand 
again,  and  to  learn,  if  it  may  be,  how  he  fares. 
And  the  rich  man  looks  down  with  a  bland  con- 
descension upon  the  school-fellow  who  chose  the 
company  of  his  books  rather  than  the  com- 
panionship of  the  market-place,  and  as  he  notes, 
perhaps,  his  lean  and  Cassius-like  outline,  his 
seedy  if  not  shabby  garb,  and  his  shy  and  rustic 


HIGHER  EDUCATION.  577 

manner,  smooths  his  own  portly  and  well-clad 
person  with  complacency,  and  thanks  his  stars 
that  he  early  took  to  trade.  Poor  fool !  He 
does  not  perceive  that  his  friend  the  professor 
has  most  accurately  taken  his  measure,  and  that 
the  clear  and  kindly  eyes  that  look  at .  him 
through  those  steel-bowed  spectacles  have  seen 
with  something  of  sadness,  and  something  more 
of  compassion,  how  the  finer  aspirations  of 
earlier  days  have  all  been  smothered  and 
quenched !  In  an  age  which  is  impatient  of  any 
voice  that  will  not  cry,  '  Great  is  the  god  of  rail- 
roads and  syndicates,  and  greater  yet  are  the 
apostles  of  '  puts  '  and  '  calls/  of  '  corners  '  and 
pools ! '  we  want  a  race  of  men  who  by  their  very 
existence  shall  be  a  standing  protest  against  the 
reign  of  a  coarse  materialism  and  a  deluge  of 
greed  and  self-seeking. 

"But  to  have  such  a  race  of  men  we  must 
have  among  us  those  whose  vision  has  been 
purged  and  unsealed  to  see  the  dignity  of  the 
scholar's  calling.  One  may  not  forget  that 
among  those  who  will  soon  go  forth  from  college 
halls  to  begin  their  work  in  life  there  must  needs 
be  many  to  whom  the  nature  of  that  work,  and 
in  some  sense  the  aims  of  it,  are  foreordained 
by  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  com- 
pelled to  do  it.  One  may  not  forget,  in  other 
words,  that,  with  many  of  us,  the  stern  question 
of  earning  our  bread  is  that  which  most  urgently 


578         "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

challenges  us,  and  which  we  cannot  hope  to 
evade.  But  there  is  no  one  of  us  who  may  not 
wisely  remember  that,  in  the  domain  of  the  in- 
tellect as  in  the  domain  of  the  spiritual  and 
moral  nature,  '  the  life  is  more  than  meat  and 
the  body  than  raiment,'  and  that  the  hope  of  our 
time,  or  of  any  time,  is  not  in  men  who  are  con- 
cerned in  what  they  can  get,  but  in  what  they 
can  see.  Frederick  Maurice  has  well  reminded 
us  how  inadequate  is  that  phrase  which  describes 
the  function  of  the  scholar  to  be  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge.  Here  is  a  man  whose  days  and 
nights  are  spent  in  laborious  plodding,  and 
whose  brain,  before  he  is  done  with  life,  becomes 
a  store-house  from  which  you  can  draw  out  a  fact 
as  you  would  take  down  a  book  from  the  shelves 
of  a  library.  We  must  not  speak  of  such  a 
scholar  disrespectfully ;  and  in  a  generation 
which  is  impatient  of  plodding  industry,  and 
content,  as  never  before,  with  smart  and  super- 
ficial learning,  we  may  well  honor  those  whose 
rare  acquisitions  are  the  fruit  of  painful  and 
untiring  labor.  But,  surely,  his  is  a  nobler 
understanding  of  his  calling  as  a  scholar  who 
has  come  to  see  that,  in  whatsoever  department 
of  inquiry,  it  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  how 
much  learning  he  is  possessed  of,  as,  rather,  how 
truly  anything  that  he  has  learned  has  pos- 
sessed him.  There  are  men  whose  acquirements 
in  mere  bulk  and  extent  are,  it  may  be,  neither 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  579 

large  nor  profound.  But  when  they  have  taken 
their  powers  of  inquiry  and  investigation  and 
gone  with  them  to  the  shut  doors  of  the  king- 
dom of  knowledge,  they  have  tarried  there  in 
stillness  and  on  their  knees,  waiting  and  watch- 
ing for  the  light.  And  to  these  has  come,  in  all 
ages,  that  which  is  the  best  reward  of  the 
scholar — not  a  fact  to  be  hung  up  on  a  peg  and 
duly  numbered  and  catalogued,  but  the  vision 
of  a  truth  to  be  the  inspiration  of  all  their 
lives." 

Among  the  departments  of  higher  education 
at  which  the  self-styled  "  practical  "  man  turns 
up  his  nose  are  the  mental,  moral  and  political 
sciences.  They  are  sneered  at  as  a  mass  of 
mere  theories  ;  good  enough,  perhaps,  to  help 
intellectual  natures  otherwise  unoccupied  to  pass 
away  the  time,  but  of  no  practical  good  in  the 
world.  Yet  President  Oilman,  whose  mind  runs 
largely  upon  applied  science,  says  of  these 
studies  : 

"  They  have  twofold  value — their  service  to  the 
individual  and  their  service  to  the  state.  It  is 
by  the  study  of  the  history  of  opinion,  by  the 
scrutiny  of  mental  phenomena,  and  by  the  dis- 
cussion of  ethical  principles,  that  religious  and 
moral  character  is  to  be  developed.  The  hours 
of  reflection  are  redeemed  from  barrenness  and 
made  fruitful,  like  sand-plains  irrigated  by 
mountain-streams,  when  they  are  pervaded  by 


580        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

the  perennial  currents  which  flow  from  the  lofty 
heights  of  philosophy  and  religion.  Above  all 
other  educational  subjects  in  importance  stands 
philosophy,  the  exercise  of  reason  upon  those 
manifold  and  perplexing  problems  of  existence 
which  are  as  old  as  humanity  and  as  new  as  the 
nineteenth  century.  For  its  place  in  a  liberal 
education  no  substitute  need  apply.  What  is 
true  of  the  moral  sciences  in  reference  to  individ- 
ual character  may  be  said  of  the  historical  and 
political  sciences  in  relation  to  the  state.  That 
nation  is  in  danger  of  losing  its  liberties,  and  of 
entering  upon  a  period  of  corruption  and  decay, 
which  does  not  keep  its  eye  steadily  fixed  on  the 
experience  of  other  nations,  and  does  not  apply  to 
its  own  institutions  and  laws  the  lessons  of  the 
past.  The  evils  we  complain  of,  the  burdens  we 
carry,  the  dangers  we  fear,  are  to  be  met  by  the 
accumulated  experience  of  other  generations  and 
of  other  climes." 

Yet  this  distinguished  teacher  would  not,  like 
some  men  of  equal  note  but  less  breadth  of 
character,  have  the  college  student  restrict  him- 
self to  these  departments  of  study.  He  shows 
himself  abreast  of  the  times  when  he  says  : 

"  A  liberal  education  requires  an  acquaintance 
with  scientific  methods,  with  the  modes  of  in- 
quiry, of  observation,  of  comparison,  of  eliminat- 
ing error  and  of  ascertaining  truth,  which  are 
observed  by  modern  investigators.  Such  an 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  581 

acquaintance  may  be  better  secured  by  prolonged 
and  thorough  attention  to  one  great  department 
of  science,  like  chemistry,  physics,  biology,  or 
geology,  than  by  acquiring  a  smattering  of 
twenty  branches.  If  every  college  student  would 
daily  for  one  or  two  years  devote  a  third  of  his 
study  time  to  either  of  the  great  subjects  we  have 
named,  or  to  others  which  might  be  named,  he 
would  exercise  his  faculties  in  a  discipline  very 
different  from  that  afforded  by  his  linguistic  and 
mathematical  work.  He  would  not  only  find  his 
observing  powers  sharpened ;  he  would  find  his 
judgment  improved  by  its  exercise  on  the  cer- 
tainties of  natural  law.  '  He  would  never  after- 
ward be  prejudiced  against  the  true  workers  in 
science,  nor  afraid  of  the  progress  of  modern 
learning.  Whatever  might  be  his  future  voca- 
tion, ecclesiastical,  educational,  or  editorial,  he 
would  speak  of  science  with  no  covert  sneer 
and  with  no  suppressed  apprehension.  The 
more  religious  his  nature,  the  more  reverent 
would  he  become.  In  public  affairs  which  call 
for  a  knowledge  of  science,  he  would  know  how 
to  discriminate  between  the  quack  and  the 
authority,  and  he  would  be  quick  to  perceive 
in  how  many  departments  of  government  the 
liberal  use  of  scientific  methods  is  now  impera- 
tively demanded." 

If  no  other  purpose  could  be  attained  by  rais- 
ing the   standard  and  broadening  the  scope  of 


582  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

such  of  our  colleges  as  aspire  to  the  rank  of 
universities,  and  of  sending  to  them  all  of  our 
young  men  who  sincerely  desire  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, there  would  be  the  enormous  gain,  to  each 
student,  of  association  with  men  of  his  own  kind. 
Such  association  elsewhere  is  almost  impossible 
in  this  land  of  scattered  population  and  magnifi- 
cent distances.  Many  ill-balanced  "  cranks  " 
might  have  been  spared  us  could  active,  restless, 
inquiring  minds  have  been  placed  amid  congenial 
surroundings  instead  of  chafing  against  barren 
environments  and  consuming  their  minds  over 
trivialities.  Edward  Everett  Hale  is  credited 
with  the  saying  :  "  The  main  good  of  a  college  is 
not  in  the  things  which  it  teaches  ;  the  good  of 
a  college  is  to  be  had  from  the  '  fellows '  who  are 
there  and  your  association  with  them."  President 
Dwight,  of  Yale,  while  dissenting  from  the 
sweeping  first  clause  of  Mr.  Hale's  assertion, 
admits : 

"  But '  the  fellows '  did  me  much  good  in  the 
way  of  my  education.  I  had  a  most  excellent 
and  worthy  set  of  friends,  especially  in  the  last 
year  of  my  college  life.  My  associations  with 
them  drew  me  out  of  myself,  and  gave  me,  in 
the  best  meaning  of  the  term,  the  sense  and  the 
impulse  of  good-fellowship.  As  bearing  upon 
my  preparation  for  my  life's  work,  this  association 
did  much  to  give  me  that  common  sense,  and 
sympathy,  and  warm-heartedness,  and  love  of 


THE;  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  583 

young  men,  and  comprehension  of  their  nature 
and  their  feelings,  the  value  of  which  is  so  great 
to  a  college  teacher.  The  college  friendships,  in 
their  best  development,  came  to  me  at  the  most 
fortunate  period — in  the  later  years  of  the  course. 
They  came  at  a  time  when  they  could  operate 
most  healthfully  and  happily  upon  all  that  I  had 
gained  from  my  studies  and  my  teachers,  and 
rounded  out  for  me,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  the 
education  which  belonged  to  the  university." 

One  requisite  to  the  greater  success  of  our 
higher  colleges  is  a  better  class  of  students. 
When  fees  for  matriculation  and  tuition  formed 
an  important  part  of  the  income  from  which  a 
school  had  to  maintain  itself,  an  applicant's  de- 
fects of  preparation  or  personal  character  were 
winked  at;  but  this  no  longer  is  necessary  at 
Yale,  Harvard  or  any  of  the  half  dozen  younger 
universities  which  have  been  richly  endowed. 
No  one  should  be  received  as  a  student  who  does 
not  "  mean  business  "  and  who  is  not  quickly 
responsive  to  the  influences  about  him.  Says 
Prof.  Shaler,  of  Harvard: 

"  It  is  very  clear  that  the  essential  aim  of  our 
higher  educational  establishments  is  to  take 
youths  who  have  received  a  considerable  training 
in  preparatory  schools,  who  have  attained  the 
age  of  about  eighteen  years,  and  have  begun  to 
acquire  the  motives  of  men,  and  fit  them  for  the 
higher  walks  of  active  life.  To  the  youth  must 


584  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

be  giveu  a  share  of  learning  whicli  may  serve  to 
enlarge  to  the  utmost  his  natural  powers.  He 
must  be  informed  and  disciplined  in  the  art  and 
habit  of  acquiring  information.  He  must  also 
be  disciplined  in  the  ways  of  men,  in  the  main- 
tenance of  his  moral  status  by  the  exercise  of 
his  will,  in  self-confidence  and  in  the  faithful  per- 
formance of  duty  for  duty's  sake.  Every  influ- 
ence which  tends  to  aid  him  in  putting  away  the 
irresponsible  nature  of  the  child  should  be 
brought  to  bear;  every  condition  which  will  lead 
him  to  send  forth  his  expectations  and  ambitions 
from  his  place  in  the  school  to  his  place  among 
men  should  surround  Him. 

"  Once  bring  a  young  man  clearly  to  feel  that 
his  career  in  life  is  fairly  begun  when  he  resorts 
to  college  or  the  professional  school ;  let  him  but 
conceive  that  his  place  in  life  is  to  be  determined 
by  his  conduct  in  preparation  for  it,  and  we  bring 
to  bear  a  set  of  motives  which  are  morally  as 
high  as  the  ordinary  motives  of  discipline  are  low 
in  the  moral  scale.  Just  so  far  as  the  work  of  a 
student  abounds  in  suggestions  of  his  work  in 
the  world,  so  far  as  his  teachers  by  their  conduct, 
as  well  as  by.  their  words,  serve  to  arouse  his 
manly,  dutiful  sense,  the  education  effects  its 
true  end.  Every  youth  who  is  fitted  to  be  a 
student  in  our  higher  colleges  or  universities 
will  quickly  respond  to  the  stimulus  he  feels  in 
passing  from  the  disciplinary  conditions  of  child- 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  585 

hood  to  those  which  are  fit  for  men.  If  he  be  in 
spirit  capable  of  scholarly  manliness,  we  may  be 
sure  that  his  imagination  has  forerun  the  con- 
ditions he  has  met  in  his  lower  schooling.  He 
has  longed  for  something  like  the  independence 
and  responsibility  of  manhood ;  for  an  advance  to 
the  place  of  trust  to  which  he  is  bidden.'5 

Our  higher  colleges  should  not  become  retreats 
for  that  large,  lazy,  irresponsible  class  of  young 
men  and  women  who  mistake  fondness  for  read- 
ing for  a  desire  to  study.  There  is  no  more 
deceptive  creature  alive  than  the  juvenile  book- 
worm. He  is  like  the  English  king  who  became 
noted  as  "  the  most  learned  fool  in  Christendom." 
Neither  should  feebleness  of  body  be  regarded 
as  an  indication  of  vigorous  intellect ;  this  mis- 
take has  filled  colleges  as  disastrously  as  pulpits. 
The  seriousness  of  ill-health  is  not  an  intel- 
lectual purpose ;  it  is  a  mental  disease,  and 
should  be  treated  by  the  gymnasium  instructor — 
not  the  college  professor.  President  White,  in 
outlining  the  university  of  the  future,  said : 

"A  long  observation  of  young  men  and  young 
women  has  taught  me  that  there  is  infinitely 
greater  danger  to  their  health,  moral,  intellectual 
and  physical,  from  lounging,  loafing,  dawdling 
and  droning  over  books,  than  from  the  most 
vigorous  efforts  they  can  be  induced  to  make; 
and  I  believe  that  most  thoughtful  teachers  will 
agree  with  me  on  this  point.  In  order  to  meet 


586        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

any  danger  of  the  sort  suggested,  it  will  be  ob- 
served that  I  have  insisted  on  a  proper  examina- 
tion as  to  physical  condition  at  the  same  time  with 
the  regular  examinations  for  scholarships  and 
fellowships,  and  also  upon  frequent  reports  from 
the  successful  candidates  as  to  health  as  well  as 
progress.  The  expectation  of  such  examinations 
and  reports  would  do  much  to  guard  and  improve 
the  health  of  ambitious  young  scholars  in  every 
part  of  the  country." 

Our  higher  colleges  contain  some  admirable 
instructors,  but  the  average  quality  is  not  yet 
what  it  should  be.  President  Gilman  says : 

"  For  the  ordinary  instruction  of  under-gradu- 
ate  students  men  of  broad,  generous,  varied 
culture  are  needed ;  men  who  know  the  value  of 
letters  and  of  nature  in  a  plan  of  study ;  men 
who  understand  their  own  views  because  they 
are  watching  the  necessities  and  the  transactions 
of  to-day  with  the  light  of  historical  experience ; 
men  who  believe  that  character,  intellectual  and 
moral,  is  more  important  than  knowledge,  and 
who  are  determined  that  all  the  influences  of 
college  life  shall  be  wholesome.  Such  teachers 
as  these  have  hitherto  constituted  the  faculties 
of  American  colleges  ;  their  names  may  not  have 
been  made  renowned  by  any  new  discoveries  or 
by  the  publication  of  any  great  treatises,  but 
they  have  impressed  themselves  on  generations 
of  pupils  who  have  in  their  turn  helped  to  form 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  587 

the  Best  institutions  which  maintain  the  nation. 
It  will  be  a  great  misfortune  to  American  educa- 
tion, if,  in  choosing  specialists  for  collegiate  pro- 
fessorships (as  must  be  done  in  future),  the 
authorities  fail  to  make  sure  that  these  specialists 
are  men  of  general  cultivation,  of  sound  morals 
and  of  hearty  sympathy  with  the  youth  they  are 
to  teach." 

But  what  are  college  trustees  to  do  ?  Most  of 
the  great  gifts  to  colleges  are  for  special  pur- 
poses— the  erection  of  buildings,  the  purchase 
of  instruments,  the  founding  of  a  library,  the 
purchase  of  a  telescope,  but  seldom  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  a  valuable  addition  to  the  faculty 
by  an  endowment  which  would  yield  a  sum  that 
would  justify  a  man  of  high  attainments  in 
abandoning  a  lucrative  profession  and  devoting 
himself  to  education.  Says  President  Gilnian  : 

"Is  it  not  time  for  all  who  are  interested  in 
college  foundations  to  call  for  large  donations 
for  the  increase  of  '  the  wages  fund  ?  '  Ought 
not  the  college  authorities  to  keep  in  the  back- 
ground their  desire  for  better  buildings,  and 
insist  that  adequate  means  must  first  be  provided 
for  the  maintenance  of  instruction  ?  It  will  be 
suicidal  if  a  prosperous  country  like  this  suffers 
its  institutions  of  learning  to  be  manned  by  men 
of  second-rate  abilities  because  they  are  cheaper, 
and  because  the  men  of  first-rate  powers  are 
turned  away  from  the  work  of  higher  education 


588        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

to  the  professions  of  law  and  medicine,  to  the 
ministry  and  to  business  pursuits,  as  giving  more 
hope,  more  comfort  and  more  freedom,  with 
equally  good  opportunities  of  usefulness  and 
with  prospects  of  higher  honor.  It  will  be  a 
shame  if  the  hoary  head  in  a  college,  instead  of 
being  a  crown  of  glory,  is  a  sign  of  poverty  and 
neglect.  A  college  professorship  should  be  liber- 
ally paid,  and  with  an  augmenting  salary,  so 
that,  in  this  respect,  it  may  be  at  least  as  attrac- 
tive as  other  careers  which  are  open  to  intel- 
lectual men.  If  the  very  best  men  are  not 
secured  for  the  work  of  instruction,  and  if  they 
are  not  made  so  easy  in  their  pecuniary  circum- 
stances as  to  be  free  from  care  on  that  account, 
farewell  to  intellectual  advancement,  farewell  to 
literary  progress,  farewell  to  scientific  discovery, 
farewell  to  sound  statesmanship,  farewell  to 
enlightened  Christianity ;  the  reign  of  bigotry 
and  dulness  is  at  hand." 

Our  colleges  need  more  scholarships  and  more 
fellowships.  It  ought  to  be  possible  for  any  one 
desirous  and  deserving  of  a  good  education  to 
obtain  it,  whether  he  be  son  of  a  prince  or  son 
of  a  pauper.  It  ought  also  to  be  possible  for  a 
brilliant  and  studious  graduate  to  be  specially 
rewarded  and  encouraged  by  being  supported  by 
his  Alma  Mater  so  long  as  he  continues  his 
studies  to  some  purpose  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
college.  The  "  fellow  "  of  an  English  university 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  -  589 

may  be  a  mere  loafer ;  his  title  and  its  accom- 
panying allowance  of  money  call  for  no  return  ; 
they  are  merely  rewards  for  what  has  already 
been  done.  President  White  says  : 

"  I  would  allow  the  persons  taking  fellowships 
to  use  them  in  securing  advanced  instruction  at 
whatever  institution  they  may  select  at  home  or 
abroad.  Probably  the  great  majority  would 
choose  the  best  institutions  at  home,  but  many 
would  go  abroad  and  seek  out  the  most  eminent 
professors  and  investigators.  Thus,  eager, 
energetic,  ambitious  young  American  scholars 
would  bring  back  to  us  the  best  thoughts,  words 
and  work  of  the  foremost  authorities  in  every 
department  throughout  the  world;  skill  in  the 
best  methods,  knowledge  of  the  best  books, 
familiarity  with  the  best  illustrative  material. 
From  the  scholars  thus  trained  our  universities, 
colleges  and  academies  would  receive  better 
teachers  ;  our  magazines  and  newspapers  writers 
better  fitted  to  discuss  living  political,  financial 
and  social  questions ;  the  various  professions 
men  better  prepared  to  develop  them  in  obedience 
to  the  best  modern  thought,  and  the  great  pur- 
suits which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  material 
prosperity — agriculture,  manufactures  and  the 
like — men  better  able  to  solve  the  practical 
problems  of  the  world.  Every  field  of  moral, 
intellectual  and  physical  activity  would  thus  be 
enriched.  All  would  be  anxious  to  train  students 


390        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'' 

fitted  to  compete  successfully  for  these  fellow- 
ships, and  the  stronger  institutions  would  be 
especially  anxious  to  develop  post-graduate 
courses  fitted  to  attract  these.  I  can  think  of  no 
better  antiseptic  for  the  dry-rot  which  afflicts  so 
many  institutions  of  learning.  The  custom  of 
shelving  clergymen  unacceptable  to  parishes  in 
college  professorships  would  probably  by  this 
means  receive  a  killing  blow." 

Bishop  Potter  writes  as  earnestly  on  this  sub- 
ject, though  from  a  different  point  of  view : 

"  We  want  place  for  men  who,  whether  as 
fellows  or  lecturers,  shall,  in  connection  with  our 
universities,  be  free  to  pursue  original  investiga- 
tion and  to  give  themselves  to  profound  study, 
untrammelled  by  the  petty  cares,  the  irksome 
round,  the  small  anxieties,  which  are  sooner  or 
later  the  death  of  aspiration,  and  fatal  obstacles 
to  inspiration.  It  is  with  processes  of  thought 
as  it  is  with  processes  of  nature — crystallization 
demands  stillness,  equanimity,  repose.  And  so 
the  great  truths  which  are  to  be  the  seed  of  forces 
that  shall  new  create  our  civilization  must  have 
a  chance  first  of  all  to  reveal  themselves.  Some 
mount  of  vision  there  must  be  for  the  scholar ; 
and  those  whose  are  the  material  treasures  out  of 
which  came  those  wonderful  endowments  and 
foundations  which  have  lent  to  England's  uni- 
versities some  elements  of  their  chiefest  glory 
must  see  that  they  have  this  mount  of  vision." 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  591 

Higher  education  does  not  require  that  college 
discipline,  direction  and  supervision  should  be 
abated ;  on  the  contrary,  it  demands  more  active 
exercise  of  all  these  functions.  Some  quite  good 
and  earnest  men  go  to  college  only  to  read ;  their 
proper  place  is  a  large  library  in  a  city.  Others, 
taking  advantage  of  "  elective "  studies,  want 
to  plunge  into  a  groove  and  remain  there.  Elec- 
tive studies  have  their  advantages,  but  young 
men  are  seldom  fit  to  select  for  themselves. 
Says  President  Bartlett,  of  Dartmouth  : 

"  From  the  fact  that  he  has  not  been  over  the 
field,  the  youth  is  incompetent  to  judge  what  is 
the  best  drill  and  culture  for  him.  And  while 
diversity  of  ultimate  aim  may  modify  the  latter 
part  of  the  basal  education,  specialism  comes 
soon  enough  when  the  special  training  begins. 
And  those  institutions  seem  to  me  wisest  which 
reserve  their  electives  till  the  last  half  of  the 
college  course,  then  introduce  them  sparingly, 
and  not  miscellaneously,  but  by  coherent  courses. 
A  general  and  predominant  introduction  of  elec- 
tives is  fruitful  of  evils.  It  perplexes  the  faith- 
ful student  in  his  inexperience.  It  tempts  and 
helps  the  average  student  to  turn  away  from  the 
studies  which  by  reason  of  his  deficiencies  he 
most  needs.  It  gives  opportunity  to  the  lazy 
student  to  indulge  his  indolence  in  the  selection 
of '  soft '  electives." 
•  Fortunately  discipline  is  not  so  hard  to  main- 


592        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

tain  in  American  colleges  as  in  European  uni- 
versities. There  are  some  "  hard  boys "  at 
Harvard,  and  the  Yale  Cubs  often  make  night 
hideous  at  New  Haven,  nevertheless  the  Ameri- 
can student  is  generally  more  respectable  and 
law-abiding  than  his  foreign  brother.  Says  Presi- 
dent Eliot,  of  Harvard : 

"  The  habitual  abstinence  from  alcohol  as  a 
daily  beverage,  which  the  great  majority  of 
American  students  observe,  explains  in  some 
degree  the  absence  in  American  institutions  of 
all  measures  to  prevent  students  from  passing 
the  night  away  from  their  college  rooms  or  lodg- 
ings. The  college  halls  at  Harvard,  Yale,  and 
Princeton  stand  open  all  night ;  while  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  looked  doors  and  gates,  and 
barred  and  shuttered  windows,  enforce  the 
student's  presence  in  his  room  after  10  P.M.,  but 
are  most  ineffectual  to  restrain  him  from  any  vice 
to  which  he  may  be  seriously  inclined.  There 
is  more  drunkenness  and  licentiousness  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  than  among  an  equal  number  of 
American  students ;  but  this  fact  is  due  rather  to 
national  temperament,  and  to  the  characteristics 
of  the  social  class  to  which  English  students 
generally  belong,  than  to  a^'thing  in  university 
organization  or  discipline.  Among  manly  virtues, 
purity  and  temperance  have  a  lower  place  in 
English  estimation  than  in  American." 

So  sensible  are  the  mass  of  American  students 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  593 

that  when  the  question  of  undergraduate  partici- 
pation in  college  management  was  raised  at 
Dartmouth  the  college  societies  reported  ad- 
versely on  the  plan,  and  the  college  paper,  edited 
by  students,  manfully  asserted,  after  a  plea  for 
strong  government,  "  What  our  colleges  really 
need  is  more  of  West  Point." 

Between  proper  government  and  amateur 
police  work,  however,  there  is  a  wide  difference. 
Ex-President  McCosh,  of  Princeton,  who  was  a 
studious,  quiet  man,  whom  no  one  could  have 
suspected  of  sympathy  with  wild  hilarity,  said : 

'  There  may  be  colleges,  but  they  are  few, 
which  are  over-governed  by  masters  who  look  as 
wise  as  Solomon,  but  whose  judgments  are  not 
just  so  wise  as  his  were.  In  some  places  there 
may  be  a  harsh  repression  of  natural  impulses, 
and  an  intermeddling  with  joyousness  and 
playfulness.  I  have  known  ministerial  pro- 
fessors denounce  infidelity  till  they  made  their 
best  students  infidel.  The  most  effective  means 
of  making  young  men  skeptics  is  for  dull  men 
to  attack  Darwin  and  Spencer,  Huxley  and 
Tyndall,  without  knowing  the  branches  which 
these  men  have  been  turning  to  their  own  uses. 
There  are  grave  professors  who  cannot  draw  the 
distinction  between  the  immorality  of  drinking 
and  snowballing.  It  is  true  that  we  have  two 
eyes  given  us  that  we  may  see,  but  we  have  also 
two  eyelids  to  cover  them  up ;  and  those  who 


594  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF  THEE." 

have  oversight  of  young  men  should  know 
when  to  open  and  when  to  close  these  organs  of 
observation.  I  have  seen  a  band  of  students 
dragging  a  horse,  which  had  entered  the  campus, 
without  matriculating,  into  a  ^cw/K-student's 
room,  and  a  professor  with  the  scene  before  him 
determinedly  turning  his  head  now  to  the  one 
side  and  now  to  the  other  that  he  might  not 
possibly  see  it.  I  have  witnessed  a  student 
coming  out  of  a  recitation-room,  leaping  into  a 
wagon,  whose  driver  had  villanously  disap- 
peared, and  careering  along  the  road,  while  the 
president  turned  back  from  his  walk  that  his 
eyes  might  not  alight  on  so  profane  a  scene." 

But  between  mere  fun  and  out-and-out 
brutality  Dr.  McCosh  drew  the  line  sharply 
when  he  said : 

"It  is  certain  that  there  are  old  college 
customs  still  lingering  in  our  country  which 
people  generally  are  now  anxious  to  be  rid  of. 
Some  of  them  are  offsets  of  the  abominable 
practices  of  old  English  schools,  and  have  come 
down  from  colonial  days,  through  successive 
generations.  Thus  American  hazing  is  a  modi- 
fication of  English  fagging.  It  seems  that  there 
are  still  some  who  defend  or  palliate  the  crime — 
for  such  it  is.  They  say  that  it  stirs  up  courage 
and  promotes  manliness.  But  I  should  like  to 
know  what  courage  there  is  in  a  crowd,  in  masks 
at  the  dead  of  night,  attacking  a  single  youth 


THE,  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  595 

who  is  gagged  and  is  defenceless !  It  is  not  a 
fair  and  open  fight  in  which  both  parties  expose 
themselves  to  danger.  The  deed,  so  far  from 
being  courageous,  is  about  the  lowest  form  of 
cowardice.  The  preparations  made  and  the 
deeds  done  are  in  all  cases  mean  and  dastardly, 
and  in  some  horrid.  I  have  seen  the  apparatus. 
There  are  masks  for  concealment,  and  gags  to 
stop  the  mouth  and  ears ;  there*  is  a  razor  and 
there  are  scissors,  there  are  ropes  to  bind,  and  in 
some  cases  whips  or  boards  to  inflict  blows ; 
there  are  commonly  filthy  applications  ready, 
and  in  all  cases  unmanly  insults  more  difficult 
to  be  borne  by  a  youth  of  spirit  than  any  beat- 
ing. The  practice,  so  far  from  being  humaniz- 
ing, is  simply  brutalizing  in  its  influence  on  all 
engaged  in  it.  It  does  not  form  the  brave  man, 
but  the  bully.  The  youth  exposed  to  the  in- 
dignity this  year  is  prepared  to  revenge  it  on 
another  next  year.  A  gentleman  who  knows 
American  colleges  well  tells  me  that  in  those  in 
which  hazing  is  common  in  the  younger  classes 
the  very  look  of  the  students  is  rowdy ish.  It  is 
astonishing  that  the  American  people,  firm 
enough  when  they  are  roused,  should  have 
allowed  this  barbarity  to  linger  in  our  colleges, 
great  and  small,  down  to  the  last  quarter  of  the" 
nineteenth  century  of  the  religion  of  purity  and 
love." 

Our  universities  and   more    progressive   col- 


596        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

leges  are  slowly  but  surely  reshaping  them- 
selves on  the  lines  indicated  in  the  foregoing 
pages,  and  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  no 
graduate  can  be  excused  for  being  merely  book- 
stuffed  instead  of  educated. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

OUR     GREAT     CONCERN. 

OURS  is  the  greatest  land  in  the  world,  and  we> 
the  people  of  these  United  States,  ought  to  be 
the  greatest  people. 

At  the  present  time  it  does  not  require  any 
great  amount  of  conceit  to  make  us  believe  that 
we  are  superior  to  our  neighbors,  but  it  will  not 
do  to  forget  that  the  faculty  of  being  up  and 
growing  is  not  one  of  which  we  have  a  mo- 
nopoly. 

One  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic  said : 
"  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty."  He 
might  have  added  that  it  is  the  price  of  pretty 
much  everything  else  worth  having  and  keeping. 

We  Americans  have  led  the  world  in  a  great 
many  respects  in  most  unexpected  ways  and  at 
unexpected  times,  but  seldom  does  a  year  pass  in 
which  we  do  not  discover  that  we  have  no  mo- 
nopoly of  the  art  of  taking  the  lead.  In  one  way 
or  other,  some  nations  of  the  earth  are  continually 
showing  themselves  superior  to  us  in  some  re- 
spects. We  have  needed  a  great  many  warnings 
of  this  kind,  and  we  will  need  a  great  many  more 

597 


598        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

unless  we  act  more  promptly  upon  those  which 
have  already  been  granted  us. 

We  have  had  enough  success  in  other  days  to 
make  us  very  conceited,  so  it  is  natural  that  oc- 
casionally we  fall  behind  our  competitors  through 
the  blindness  of  our  fancied  security.  There 
was  a  time  when  American  sails  whitened  every 
ocean,  and  more  American  ships  could  be  seen  in 
foreign  ports  than  those  of  two  or  three  other 
nations  combined.  The  man  who  would  now  go 
out  in  a  foreign  port  to  look  for  an  American 
flag,  determining  not  to  break  his  fast  till  he 
found  one,  would  stand  a  fair  chance  of  starving 
to  death.  Whether  the  disappearance  of  our 
flag  from  commerce  is  due  only  to  the  ravages 
of  the  Alabama  and  her  sister  privateers,  or  to 
the  navigation  laws  now  in  force,  is  not  to  the 
point  of  the  present  situation,  which  is,  that  un- 
expectedly to  ourselves  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  we  have  taken  the  lowest  position  among 
the  nations  as  carriers  of  what  we  have  to  buy 
and  sell,  and  that  we  do  not  show  any  indications 
whatever  of  ever  resuming  our  old  position. 

Another  instance :  Within  the  memory  of  half 
the  people  now  alive,  the  world  heard  that  Cot- 
ton was  king,  and,  as  cotton  was  obtainable  only 
from  America,  Americans  proudly  assumed  to  be 
the  commercial  rulers  of  the  world.  Owing  to  a 
little  family  trouble  on  this  side  of  the  water,  the 
other  nations  began  to  look  about  elsewhere  for 


OUR   GREAT   CONCERN.  599 

their  cotton.  They  found  some  in  unexpected 
places,  and  have  been  finding  it  there  ever  since. 
We  still  produce  more  cotton  than  any  other 
country,  but  we  are  not  kings  of  the  cotton  mar- 
ket any  longer. 

Then  came  the  time  when  Corn  was  king.  It 
is  true  we  did  not  ship  much  of  it  in  the  grain, 
but  between  putting  it  into  pork  and  putting  it 
into  whiskey,  our  corn  became  the  first  cause  of 
the  loading  many  thousands  of  ships  to  different 
foreign  countries.  Foreigners  have  eyes  in  their 
heads  and  they  began  to  look  about  and  see 
whether  they  could  not  produce  pork  and  whis- 
key as  cheaply  as  those  people  across  the  water, 
who  had  to  send  their  products  three  thousand 
miles  or  more  to  find  a  market.  They  succeeded. 
At  the  present  day,  although  our  distilleries  and 
pig-styes  are  in  active  operation,  a  great  deal  of 
distilled  liquors  and  also  a  great  deal  of  the  meat 
of  the  hog  comes  this  way  across  the  ocean.  The 
market  still  is  good  abroad  for  American  hams, 
sides,  shoulders,  bacon  and  lard,  but  the  bottom 
has  dropped  out  of  the  whiskey  market,  and 
seems  to  show  no  signs  of  a  desire  to  return. 

For  a  number  of  years,  and  until  very  recently, 
our  wheat  had  made  us  commercially,  in  one  sense 
at  least,  the  superior  of  all  the  other  nations  of 
the  world.  The  finer  breads  tuffs  were  not  to  be 
had  in  Europe  except  from  American  sources. 
Year  by  year  the  price  of  wheat  increased  until 


600        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

• 

the  American  farmer  became  so  enviable  an  indi- 
vidual that  a  great  many  merchants  went  out  of 
business,  bought  farms,  and  attempted  to  com- 
pete with  him.  As  is  usually  the  case  when  any 
business  is  so  nourishing  that  every  one  wishes 
to  go  into  it,  endeavors  were  being  made  by  hun- 
dreds of  sharp-eyed  observers  to  see  whether 
wheat  might  not  be  more  profitably  produced  in 
other  portions  of  the  world,  and  the  success 
which  attended  these  observations  has  been  any- 
thing but  gratifying  to  the  American  farmer. 
Russia  and  Hungary  are  producing  more  wheat 
than  ever  before.  Wheat  is  pouring  into  Europe 
from  Asia,  and  even  from  Africa,  and  the  Ameri- 
can farmer  now  is  not  quite  so  sure  as  to  what 
will  be  the  result  of  a  good  crop  of  wheat — not 
sure  whether  it  will  yield  a  profit  or  fail  to  pay 
expenses.  Even  the  reductions  in  freight  rates, 
alike  from  the  agricultural  districts  to  the  sea- 
shore and  from  America  to  Europe,  do  not  com- 
pensate him  for  the  great  reduction  in  the  price 
of  what  once  he  fondly  believed  was  an  enduring 
source  of  profit.  The  time  when  it  was  safe  to 
put  an  entire  farm  into  wheat  has  passed.  Far- 
mers are  studying  mixed  crops  now  with  all  the 
intelligence  that  is  in  them,  for  a  man's  first 
duty  is  to  earn  food  for  his  family. 

Again,  when  it  was  discovered  that,  helped  by 
some  refrigerating  process,  we  could  send  fresh 
meat  to  Europe,  the  whole  country  arose,  cheered 


OUR   GREAT   CONCERN.  601 

and  patted  itself  upon  the  back.  Now,  surely 
the  whole  world  would  be  at  our  feet,  for  were  we 
not  feeding  Englishmen,  Frenchmen  and  Ger- 
mans cheaper  than  any  of  their  home  producers 
could  do  it  ?  Our  self-satisfaction  increased  when 
it  was  discovered  that  live  cattle  also  could  be 
sent  over  to  Burope  in  immense  quantities  and 
pay  a  handsome  profit  in  spite  of  occasional 
losses  due  to  storms  and  injudicious  loading  of 
the  vessels  which  carried  the  animals.  About 
this  time  ranches  began  to  cover  all  ground  in 
the  far  West  that  was  fit  at  all  for  grazing,  and 
the  estates,  nominally  the  property  of  those  who 
managed  them,  came  to  be  of  baronial  extent. 
But  what  America  could  do,  Australia  began  to 
think  she  also  could  do,  and  even  South  Africa 
was  not  averse  to  experimenting  in  the  same  di- 
rection. We  still  send  a  great  deal  of  meat  to 
Europe,  but  ranch  property  is  not  as  much  in 
demand  as  once  it  was.  There  are  ranches  now 
to  be  had  for  the  taking,  but  the  takers  are  few. 

Just  before  the  ranch  fever  began,  we  struck 
oil — struck  it  in  such  immense  quantities,  and 
also  found  men  so  competent  to  make  it  fit  for 
general  use,  that  petroleum  in  some  of  its  forms 
promised  to  be  the  leading  export  article  of  the 
United  States.  There  was  not  a  civilized  quarter 
of  the  world  in  which  one  couldn't  find  the 
American  kerosene  oil  can.  Our  oil  still  con- 
tinues to  go  abroad  in  immense  quantities,  but 


602        "MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE.'* 

the  fortunes  which  have  been  made  upon  it 
have  stimulated  prospectors  all  over  the  world, 
and,  as  it  is  known  that  oil  is  not  restricted  to 
any  single  hemisphere,  or  even  grand  division 
of  the  world,  the  prospects  begin  to  look  rather 
dismal  for  America  regaining  supremacy  in  this 
particular  article  of  commerce.  The  Asiatic  oil 
wells  are  far  more  valuable  than  ours  and  are 
worked  at  less  expense,  and  the  supply  can  be 
distributed  in  Europe  quite  as  easily  and  cheaply 
as  that  from  the  American  wells  and  refineries. 
Evidently  we  can't  afford  to  depend  upon  oil 
alone.  Large  fortunes  have  been  made  upon  it, 
but  there  is  an  old  song  which  says-:  "  The  mill 
can  never  grind  with  the  water  that  is  passed." 
We  need  something  new  to  keep  us  at  the  fore. 
What  it  is  to  be  has  not  yet  been  discovered. 

Some  few  unfulfilled  expectations  of  this  kind, 
some  great  commercial  disappointments,  are 
probably  necessary  to  divest  us  of  part  of  the 
overweening  self-confidence  which  is  peculiar  to 
the  inhabitants  of  all  new  countries.  Simple 
and  unquestioning  belief  in  manifest  destiny  and 
all  that  sort  of  talk  has  quite  a  stimulating  ef- 
fect at  times,  but  it  also  is  likely  to  lull  people 
into  a  false  sense  of  security.  It  already  has 
done  so  to  a  large  extent  in  the  United  States. 
We  have  been  so  well  satisfied  that  we  were  su- 
perior in  intelligence  and  resources  to  any  other 
land  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  we  have  been 


OUR   GREAT   CONCERN.  603 

inattentive  to  some  of  our  greater  interests.  The 
shipping  of  raw  materials  of  any  kind  is  a 
reputable  division  of  industry,  but  it  is  not  the 
highest  result  at  which  a  nation  should  aim,  nor 
should  any  amount  of  success  at  it  blind  the 
people  to  their  greater  duties,  responsibilities  and 
opportunities. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  other  nation  of  the 
world  has  so  much  as  we  to  be  thankful  for  and 
to  encourage  them.  We  have  no  bad  neighbors 
who  are  strong  enough  for  us  to  be  afraid  of,  and 
all  the  greater  powers  of  the  world  are  far  enough 
away  to  take  very  little  interest  in  us,  unless  we 
annoy  them  in  some  way.  We  do  not  have  to 
squander  the  energies  and  sometimes  the  life- 
blood  of  our  race  by  putting  all  our  young  men 
into  armies  and  navies  and  teaching  them  dis- 
trust, suspicion,  cruelty  and  the  spirit  of  rapine. 
Our  taxes  are  heavy,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  our 
national  debt,  once  so  enormous,  is  being  re- 
duced with  such  rapidity  that  soon  we  will  show 
the  world  the  astonishing  spectacle  of  a  great 
nation  without  a  debt.  There  is  nowhere  else  in 
the  world  where  a  person  with  money  to  invest 
and  desiring  it  to  remain  absolutely  secure,  no 
matter  at  how  small  a  rate  of  interest,  cannot 
quickly  obtain  the  securities  of  his  own  govern- 
ment for  his  gold  or  notes,  but  here  there  is  very 
little  encouragement  any  longer  to  buy  the  na- 
tional bonds,  for  they  are  being  redeemed  at  a 


604  "  MY   COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

rate  which  makes  it  almost  impossible  for  any 
one  to  retain  them  with  certainty  for  a  long 
time  as  a  permanent  investment.  Holders  of  the 
debts  of  other  countries  expect  never  to  have 
their  principal  redeemed;  they  are  satisfied  to 
get  interest  perpetually,  as  undoubtedly  they  will 
unless  the  debts  are  repudiated.  There  is  very 
little  possibility  of  any  foreign  country  of  the 
first  class  ever  discharging  all  of  its  financial  ob- 
ligations so  far  as  principal  is  concerned,  unless 
it  provokes  a  fight  with  the  United  States  and 
holds  our  cities  for  ransom.  If  we  must,  and 
certain  economists  say  we  must,  continue  to  ex- 
tract a  large  amount  of  money  from  the  pockets 
of  the  people,  we  will  at  least  have  the  satisfac- 
tion of  seeing  it  spent  for  something  besides  dead 
horses. 

We  also  are  reducing  the  proportion  of  our 
uneducated  and  ignorant  classes  at  a  rapid  and 
gratifying  rate.  Other  countries  are  working  in 
this  direction  with  more  skill,  thoughtfulness 
and  accurate  appliances,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  have  to  contend  against  the  apathy  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  population,  an  article  which,  hap- 
pily, in  this  country  is  of  very  small  proportions. 
Besides  the  vast  mass  of  uneducated  beings  who 
have  come  to  us  as  immigrants,  we  have  also  the 
entire  colored  population  of  the  South,  but 
schools  are  built  so  rapidly  and  all  classes  of  our 
people,  even  the  most  ignorant  of  blacks,  are  so 


OUR   GREAT   CONCERN.  605 

ambitious  to  be  as  good  as  any  other  class,  that 
it  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  get  children  to  school 
and  to  persuade  parents  to  take  a  hearty  interest 
in  education.  Whatever  may  be  our  faults  in 
the  future,  ignorance  promises  not  to  be  one  of 
them. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  subject,  and  one 
which  cannot  too  quickly  begin  to  turn  the 
thoughtful  portion  of  the  public.  "  A  little 
learning  is  a  dangerous  thing,"  is  a  sentiment 
which  has  frequently  been  quoted.  The  inherent 
right  of  every  citizen  to  reach  the  highest  office 
of  the  government  has  so  stimulated  ambition 
that  almost  any  one  is  willing  to  try  for  the  posi- 
tion whether  fit  or  not,  and  the  same  statement 
holds  good  regarding  every  other  place  of  trust 
or  profit  in  public  or  private  life.  Half-educated 
men,  men  of  almost  no  education,  have  brought 
this  country  to  great  peril  again  and  again. 
Their  numbers  are  constantly  increasing.  We 
must  be  on  guard  against  them.  Misdirected 
activity  is  worse  than  no  activity  at  all,  but  there 
is  something  worse  than  that,  and  it  is  the  cease- 
less ambition  of  men  whose  conscience  does  not 
keep  pace  with  their  intelligence.  The  school 
supplies  intelligence,  but  conscience  is  something 
which  cannot  be  made  to  order,  and  no  institu- 
tion under  charge  and  supervision  of  a  govern- 
ment can  be  expected  to  supply  it.  The  nations 
of  the  Old  World  have  attempted  to  do  it  for 


606  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

centuries  through  the  medium  of  the  church,  but 
good  and  noble  and  self-sacrificing  though  the 
church  has  been  at  many  times  and  in  many 
lands,  its  ministrations  cannot  be  forced  upon 
those  who  are  unwilling  to  receive  them. 

The  only  available  substitute  is  a  high  stand- 
ard of  public  morality.  This  is  voiced  by  the 
press,  by  the  pulpit  and  in  private  life ;  but,  un- 
fortunately, when  it  reaches  the  domain  of  poli- 
tics, it  immediately  becomes  confused  and  en- 
feebled. A  higher  standard  must  be  set  by  par- 
ties and  maintained  by  the  leaders  and  voters  and 
adherents  of  those  parties.  The  hypocrisy  of  all 
political  utterances  has  been  proved  over  and  over 
again  during  the  past  few  years  in  the  United 
States.  No  man  of  honesty  and  high  purpose 
can  help  blushing  for  shame  when  he  reviews 
the  broken  promises  of  his  own  political  organi- 
zation, no  matter  what  it  may  be.  "  Promises, 
like  pie-crusts,  are  made  to  be  broken,"  says  the 
practical  politician,  and  while  for  three  years  and 
six  months  of  every  four  the  respectable  citizen 
protests  against  such  shameful  disregard  of  pub- 
lic and  private  morals,  in  the  remaining  six 
months  he  is  likely  to  give  his  tacit  assent  and 
his  active  vote  to  the  party  with  which  he  has 
always  acted  in  politics,  regardless  of  who  may 
be  its  leaders  and  what  may  be  its  actual  inten- 
tions. Until  both  parties  line  down  this  disgrace 
and  dishonor  there  will  be  a  weak  joint  in  our 


OUR   GREAT   CONCERN.  607 

armor  and  our  enemies  will  sooner  or  later  dis- 
cover a  way  of  piercing  it.  "  Righteousness  ex- 
alteth  a  nation,"  says  an  authority  which  most 
Americans  regard  with  great  respect — except 
during  a  Presidential  campaign. 

The  stability  and  peace  of  our  nation  should  be 
the  great  concern  of  our  people,  and  as  there  is 
not  a  private  virtue  which  may  not  be  influential 
in  this  direction,  each  individual  has  it  in  his  power 
to  further  the  great  purpose  of  the  community. 
All  the  other  nations  envy  us — envy  us  our  form 
of  government,  our  freedom  from  conscription, 
large  armies,  privileged  classes,  vested  rights, 
ugly  neighbors,  churchly  impositions  and  hope- 
less debts.  But  we  can  maintain  all  these 
features  of  superiority  only  by  maintaining  an 
honest  and  intelligent  government.  We  cannot 
do  it  by  being  blind,  unreasoning  partizans  of 
any  political  organization.  To  be  a  "  strong 
Democrat"  or  "strong  Republican"  is  often  to  be 
contemptibly  weak  as  an  American.  Loyalty  to 
party  often  means  disloyalty  to  the  nation.  Party 
platforms  are  seldom  framed  according  to  the  will 
of  the  majority ;  they  are  framed  by  the  leaders, 
and  often  for  the  leaders'  own  personal  purposes. 
In  all  other  lands  where  constitutional  govern- 
ment prevails  the  intelligent  classes  sway  from 
one  party  to  the  other,  according  to  their  opinion 
of  measures  proposed.  Loyalty  is  accorded  to 
the  nation  first,  the  party  afterwards.  The  party 


608  "  MY  COUNTRY,  'TIS  OF  THEE." 

is  regarded  as  a  means,  not  an  end ;  it  must  be 
so  regarded  here,  before  we  can  rise  to  the  level 
of  our  opportunities,  and  the  number  and  great- 
ness of  these  opportunities  make  this  duty  more 
imperative  here,  even  for  selfish  reasons,  than 
anywhere  else.  It  is  peculiarly  stupid  and  dis- 
graceful that  any  intelligent  American  should 
be  able  to  say,  with  Sir  Joseph  Porter,  in  "Pina- 
fore:" 

"I  always  voted  at  my  party's  call, 
And  I  never  thought  of  thinking  for  myself  at  all." 

No  party  should  be  a  voter's  ruler ;  it  is  his 
servant,  and  if  it  is  lazy,  dishonest  or  does  not 
obey  him,  it  should  be  disciplined  or  changed. 

We  must  do  much  else,  by  way  of  vigilance. 
We  must  insist  that  American  land  be  held  only 
by  Americans.  A  great  many  rich  men  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  are  willing  and  anx- 
ious to  reproduce  here  a  state  of  affairs  that 
has  made  endless  trouble  in  Burope.  Said  Presi- 
dent Harrison,  while  yet  in  the  Senate :  "  Vast 
tracts  of  our  domain,  not  simply  the  public 
domain  on  the  frontier,  but  in  some  of  our  newer 
States,  are  passing  into  the  hands  of  wealthy 
foreigners.  It  seems  that  the  land  reforms  in 
Ireland,  and  the  movement  in  England  in  favor 
of  the  reduction  of  large  estates  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  lands  among  persons  who  will  culti- 
vate them  for  their  own  use,  are  disturbing  the 


OUR    CrkKAT    COXCKRX.  009 

investments  of  some  Englishmen,  and  that  some 
of  them  are  looking  to  this  country  for  the 
acquisition  of  vast  tracts  of  land  which  may  be 
held  by  them  and  let  out  to  tenants,  out  of  the 
rents  of  which  they  may  live  abroad.  This 
evil  requires  early  attention,  and  that  Congress 
should,  by  law,  restrain  the  acquisition  of  such 
tracts  of  land  by  aliens.  Our  policy  should  be 
small  farms,  worked  by  the  men  who  own  them.1' 
So  says  every  thoughtful  American. 

We  must  give  closer  attention  to  the  army  of 
the  unemployed  if  we  wish  to  avoid  the  bad  in- 
fluence which  discontent,  of  any  class,  has  upon 
the  prosperity  of  the  community.  The  neglect 
of  workers  who  have  no  work  to  do  is  a  blot 
upon  the  fair  fame  of  our  people.  Financially, 
we  do  not  seem  to  be  affected,  one  way  or  other, 
when  a  lot  of  men  are  thrown  out  of  work.  Says 
Air.  T.  V.  Powderly,  long  the  most  eloquent 
spokesman  of  the  working  class  :  ult  matters  not 
that  the  carpet-mills  suspend  three  hundred 
hands,  the  price  of  carpeting  remains  unchanged. 
The  gingham-mills  and  the  cotton  and  woollen- 
mills  may  reduce  the  wages  of  employes  five  and 
ten  per  cent.,  but  the  price  of  gingham  and  calico 
continues  as  before.1"  But  the  men  who  suffer — 
they  and  their  families — by  partial  or  total  loss 
of  income,  feel  keenly  the  apathy  of  the  general 
body  of  consumers,  and  their  indignation  and 
suspicion  will  be  sure  to  make  themselves  known 


<>K.)  "  MY    COUNTRY,  'TIS   OF   THEE." 

unpleasantly  when  least  expected.  We  are  all 
working  men  ;  we  owe  practical  sympathy  to  the 
least  of  onr  brethren. 

We  must  make  more  of  the  individual,  and 
unload  fewer  of  our  responsibilities  upon  the 
government,  whether  local,  State  or  national. 
As  editor  Grady,  of  Georgia,  said  recently  to  the 
graduating  class  of  the  University  of  Virginia : 
"  The  man  who  kindles  the  fire  on  the  hearth- 
stone of  an  honest  and  righteous  home  burns  the 
best  incense  to  liberty.  He  does  not  love  man- 
kind less  who  loves  his  neighbor  most.  Exalt 
the  citizen.  As  the  State  is  the  unit  of  govern- 
ment, he  is  the  unit  of  the  State.  Teach  him 
that  his  home  is  his  castle,  and  his  sovereignty 
rests  beneath  his  hat.  Make  him  self-respecting, 
self-reliant  and  responsible.  Let  him  lean  on  the 
State  for  nothing  that  nis  own  arm  can  do,  and 
on  the  government  for  nothing  that  his  State  can 
do.  Let  him  cultivate  independence  to  the  point 
of  sacrifice,  and  learn  that  humble  things  with 
unbartered  liberty  are  better  than  splendors 
bought  with  itr.  price.  Let  him  neither  sur- 
render his  individuality  to  government  nor  merge 
it  with  the  mob.  Let  him  stand  upright  and 
fearless — a  freeman  bcni  of  freemen — sturdy  in 
his  own  strength — dowering  his  family  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow — loving  to  his  State — loyal  to 
his  Republic — earnest  in  his  allegiance  wherever 
it  rests,  but  building  his  altar  in  the  midst  of 


OTR    TrRKAT    COXCKRX.  Oil 

his  household  gods  and  shrining  in  his  own 
heart  the  uttermost  temple  of  its  liberty." 

On  all  this,  and  the  general  subject  of  this 
book,  the  editor  begs  to  quote,  in  conclusion,  from 
a  well-known  and  highly  respected  authority. 

41  Men  and  brethren,  think  on  these  things." 


